IBM Corporate Service Corps Community Day, Beijing — 2018
One of the cool experiences every IBM Corporate Service Corps (CSC) team gets to take part in is a community day. Community days take many different shapes and sizes, but at the core they are about taking time outside of the four week CSC client assignment to give back to the community as one IBM team. I was really looking forward to the China 42 community day, as it was all about meeting local IBMers, local students, and local elderly men and woman to raise awareness and educate the community about cognitive impairment.
We all woke up a bit early for a Saturday morning (6:30!) to head to the location of the event. The drive was a fun one, the cab weaved in and out of Hutongs (small alleys that are common in northern Chinese cities + really fun to explore). We arrived at the Beijing Dongcheng Care Service Guidance Center and immediately got a tour. The center is owned by the government and is working to help the elderly in the community — whether it be conducting a gym class, sharing new gadgets that can help them with everyday life or assessing them to provide a personalized assistance plan.
Once we finished the tour we made our way to the main room to start the event. Local IBMers, 50 students from a local public welfare vocational school and about 20 elderly men and woman from the community joined us. Naturally, I made friends immediately with the coolest #ladyboss. She is over 80 years old and has more energy than me (crazy, I know). Even though we couldn’t understand each other with our words, we figured out a way to communicate and it was one of the highlights of my day. Check out some of our pictures below …
The event officially kicked off with the President of the Beijing Dongcheng District Women’s Federation and one of the staff members of CAJ, a local home care service agency. Then one of the CSC team members, Tommey, spoke beautifully to the room about why we were all spending our Saturday together. The next part of the event was a bit more personal, as one of my teammates, Angelo, spoke about his experience with Alzheimers. Unfortunately, his dad suffers from the illness and has struggled for some years now. Angelo spoke about how his local community in Italy has helped him and his family out tremendously. The story really hit home and brought to light why we need to build awareness about cognitive impairment and share information on early warning signs, tools and technology that can support, as well as communities that have education and information to help.
All the attendees then broke out into teams to work on “missions.” Each mission was unique and challenged teams to think of creative ways to educate the room on cognitive impairment. After 45 minutes working in small teams we came back together to share with the room. Some teams did skits, some did games, and some recited Chinese poems. It was a creative way to share some learning on cognitive impairment and I think we all left feeling educated on the illness, the impact and ways we can help. We closed out the day with a lot of selfies and hugs. Hoping this event is the start of many more in the community.
The rest of the day was filled with exploration and a birthday dinner for Bernhard, an amazing colleague from Germany! (yes we are eating pizza…see below). It was AH-MAZING and a nice break from the hotpot, duck and dumplings.
