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English Speech!
I'm going to post my english speech up here! Because i'm very proud of it. Its difficult to write a speech, and more difficult to write a good speech. So yep, i'm keeping my speech here for reference! Sometimes, doing things on your birthday make them more effective!
Good Afternoon Panel of Funding Committee of Children’s Cancer Foundation.
I would like to thank you for this opportunity to present my proposal on setting up support groups for children cancer patients.
This is truly a celebration – a celebration of the Foundation’s effort to help children cancer patients gain a life of normalcy.
Every year, preschoolers enter formal schooling, twelve-year-olds step into a secondary school and secondary fours choose whether to attend a college or a polytechnic.
Every year, 1500 children under the age of fifteen are diagnosed with cancer.
Though the frequency of the treatments is the same as adult cancer patients, they are more severely impacted by the diagnosis.
As they are developing physically, the growing tissues of the child aid the spread of metastastic tissues.
Coupled with the lack of maturity to face the illness, children are most physically and psychologically affected by the frightening disease.
At this very moment, as we sit here, children around the world are attending school, playing soccer, reading literature, surfing the internet, fiddling with the latest gadgets and rocking to the latest pop songs.
Children are also physically and mentally drained from cancer; they lost their precious hair, they are ostracized by their classmates; they miss lesson regularly and they struggle to keep pace in class.
Not only do they have to battle with their own demon, their siblings are jealous of the attention parents shower on them. My Sister’s Keeper depicts the battle of Kate against leukemia and against Anna, for Anna was distraught that she was born with the purpose of saving her sister. In the individualized therapeutic play they attend, they draw pictures and the psychologist has warped interpretations of their mixed feelings.
Most give up and let nature take its course.
The battle has to be won in the mind.
Support groups lead by an adult cancer survivor could be formed among children cancer patients to give them the willpower and determination to overcome cancer.
According to the Straits Times (Home, October 10, 2009), breast cancer patients in the Volunteer Counselling Programme responded that the best person to provide encouragement is one who has gone through a similar psychological war of cancer and has emerged victorious.
In support groups, children will feel more comfortable sharing their troubles who is fighting a similar psychological war. Besides providing moral and emotional support for one another, they forge life-long friendships that will pull them through life’s other obstacles.
Engaging in therapeutic play within the support groups will show great leaps in the children’s thinking, bringing them one step closer to winning the war.
Daniel Spiegel, an M.D. from Stanford has researched extensively on this topic for a decade.
Group therapy not only allows patients to see multiple perspectives of a situation, but also recognize that patients can model after others in a group to discover the perfect solution to the problem. With interaction in a group comes enhanced social skills.
In 1993, Spiegel presented his findings. To the scientific community, he mentioned, “The support groups we formed [for breast cancer patients] offered far more than hand-holding and good wishes. The sessions became a time and a place for women to express their deepest fears. […] The groups provided a setting in which they could deal with their fears.
There may be doubts on the sustainability of the programme. Do not fret, for we could provide a series of professional training for the volunteers, equip them with counseling skills through theory lessons and practice on their groups, allow them to share their learnings and experiences at monthly meetings and attach younger volunteers to more seasoned ones to learn the ropes.
Let the psychological battle children cancer patients struggle today with be our call to action.
And let us heed the call so that we can create an organization in which every child is loved.
Thank you for your attention.
Labels: Prose, school
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