Dar ul Sukun(Understanding the Misunderstood): Reflections

Pillars to the team work

Beginning with the regular group discussions in classroom that were quiet helpful in building up the bond among our group members. Since the early days of semester, we had started working on our project by assigning equal amount of tasks to each of the members and giving it a constant check with our teacher. At initial stage, communicating our point of views and bring them a mutual idea was not easy but since our objectives were same, we were gradually successful.

This essay is a reflection of our term report which comprises of identifying, analyzing and measuring communication patterns between the volunteers/management of Dar-ul-Sukoon and the people residing there. This also consisted of communication between us and the people at Dar-ul-Sukoon as both verbal and non-verbal modes of communication were used.

Hurdles on the way to success

It was not easy to conduct this research as there were a few hurdles which resulted in alerting us to overcome them in future. There were no major failures encountered but the challenges we had to face during this research were a few to note. Conveyance was a challenge as the whole group consisted of girls who do not own their own transport. Time was another pivotal obstacle as Dar-ul-Sukoon is open till evenings on weekdays but group members have to attend their scheduled classes the whole day whereas the NGO winds up its activities at 12:00 pm on weekends when group members have time. Another challenge was reaching the premises without having an appointment as we were not able to get one from the management. We were, however, lucky to enter the NGO and interview the people there. This helped us gather information and feedback on communicational patterns being used in the NGO internally. We were not able to make a long summarized video of the proceedings as it was not allowed but we received authorization to capture short video clips showing how the people there interact with one another. The main challenge was communicating with the children who reside there as most of them were not able to talk or listen properly and in order to resolve this we used different means of communication both verbal and non-verbal. Non-verbal included sign language, operational therapies such as classical conditioning that associated their actions with different stimuli in different surroundings.

Lower expected, over delivered

Expectations we had set were met by the management of the NGO as they complied with us. They were courteous and offered us to conduct our research without their intervention. We expected their reluctance in showing us their confidential documents but after sharing the purpose of our research they were easily convinced to show us the financial records of the NGO. They even allowed us to roam the premises and conduct random interviews with the staff and the people residing there. Video recording is strictly forbidden in certain organizations but they let our group members document their activities by video footage.

Achievements

Achievements of this research include learning how invalids are not able to communicate like normal people but they still communicate due to gaining experience from time. This also includes the volunteers understanding and identifying communication patterns in a much better way than those people who normally do not interact with the people residing in Dar-ul-Sukoon. Similarly, we were also successful in identifying the matches and mismatches between the objectives of the course and the practical applications.

Tying and untying knots between the course objectives and practical work

Matches include communicating effectively and overcoming any challenges occurring between our interactions with the residents of Dar-ul-Sukoon. This was with the help of actions, sign language and gestures with which we understood the people there. This also helped us hone our external communication skills as we practically experienced this with the organization and the people involved in it by comprehending the management’s point of view, opinions and perception, whereas the mismatches include bookish concepts such as direct or indirect communication and the planning process which is not officially followed in most organizations.

To sum it up, the overall feedback we received was substantially surprising as communication in NGOs like Dar-ul-Sukoon is completely different than what is found in other workplaces. Intense methods of interaction, quick responses and data cognition amongst their people separates their organizational culture from other entities. This also increases awareness about such NGOs among other individuals.

Even a homeless and an orphan enters the world with his deserved amount of love and care.