CIP Work Attachment in Tzu Chi, Indonesia

Tzu Chi Foundation, whose name meas compassionate relief, is an international humanitarian organization and the largest NGO yet found in the Chinese-speaking world.

The organization was founded by Dharma Master Cheng Yen, a Buddhist nun, on May 14, 1966 in Hua Lien, Taiwan, Republic of China with her belief to "work for Buddhism and for all sentient beings." The organization first started up with only 30 household wives. From these minute beginning, the group has grown to become a major civil society actor, with approximately 10 million members, and chapters in 47 countries.

Because of the huge support from people, Tzu Chi has successfully built many hospitals, schools, university, recycling industries, Medical Association and ever her own TV Channel to spread words of kindness to the world.

I am very fond of this organization for a very long time because of the amazing relief effort that this organization has done so far. They are always directed towards the most needy people in the society at the most perfect timing. This organization is a real deal in helping others with compassion and love. Although it is indeed a Buddhist organization, it does not see religion or race factor in helping others.

My point of view did not differ much after I have joined this organization for 2 weeks starting from 28^th of November till 9^th December 2011. I join the recycling sector in Medan’s Tzu Chi.

The main aim of this work is obviously to reuse paper n plastic and sell this reusable product to earn money that will be used to help others in time of need. There is only 4 official staff in my hometown’s Tzu Chi, others being full time or part time volunteers. This is amazing as the recycling centre is very big and the amount of paper and plastic that have to be recycled is huge. However, with the help of volunteers, this amount of work can be finished quickly.

Usually the number of volunteers are ranging from 6 to more than 20 in a day. The people I met there also differ in their background. However, all of them are very cheerful and kind hearted people. When they knew I was a newbie there, they treat me very carefully to ensure my safety and I do not go hungry. They teach me very patiently from scratch. Actually at first I really feel shy to ask because there are so many things to sort and I did not know where I should categorize them. However, when one of the aunty there see me looking rather confuse, she help me immediately. After that I feel less shy to ask her and other people for help. I feel very fortunate to be able to work with wonderful people like them. To add on my wonderful experience here, every day, without fail there will always be at least one volunteer who came with massive amount of food to be given to everyone in the recycling centre. This caring and loving action is very rare nowadays. However, I can feel it so deeply when I am working with the Tzu Ching(Tzu Chi’s member) ^.^

The foundation actually operates over 4,500 recycling stations. One of the foundation's projects is the recycling of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles for textiles. The project, which was started in 2006, collects PET plastic bottles, rinses and shreds them, and then converts the shredding into polyester resin, which is spun into yarn and woven into cloth.

Other items made with the recycled resins include thermal underwear, t-shirts, hospital bed sheets, medical gowns and uniforms for Tzu Chi volunteers. The item shown below too are made from recycled plastic.

As of September 2008, some 11,856,000 bottles were used to make more than 152,000 polyester blankets, many of which have been distributed as part of Tzu Chi's disaster relief programs.

The effort this organization has put in to reduce poverty and suffering in the world is tremendous. For your information, Singapore has Tzu Chi too. ^_^

For more information regarding the organization, you can go to http://www.tzuchi.org/