Kristine Roda Alingod: Creating awareness about children with disabilities
Kristine Roda Alingod served as a UN Volunteer Programme Officer with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Country Office in the Philippines. In her assignment, she supported the Child Protection team in developing programmes that were more inclusive to the needs of children with disabilities. This is her story.
I first saw the UNICEF logo on a Time magazine. It was a story about conflict in Africa. There were photos where people wore light blue jackets with the word UNICEF. I was about 10 at the time. Later, I learned more when my mom brought home UNICEF holiday greeting cards with a brief text about how the cards helped children and the organization’s work.
I am a person with an invisible disability. As a child, teenager, then young adult, I had to take care of my mom, who had multiple sclerosis for 16 years. I masked my disability most of my life. When my mother passed away, I had the space and time to recognize and begin to accepting my disability, a long process that had at the end of it transpired a need to advocate for others like me.
I have a bachelor’s degree in Political Science. I have worked in many areas – government, private sector and non-profit – as a copy and news writer, working with partnerships and project support.
Volunteering provides fulfillment and professional advancement. For me, volunteering provided a pathway despite my disability. I am very hopeful because the technology today offers many solutions. Immersive readers, text-to-speech, among others and all supports and enables persons with disabilities to volunteer.
I want to share a meaningful volunteering experience I had in Nashville assisting in a foot clinic for the homeless. I gave foot baths to people who walked the streets in wrong-sized shoes and unwashed socks. Blisters and other foot problems are common among the homeless, but when they sat on the chair in front of me, they felt that they were visible and heard. I could resonate with them.
One of UNICEF’s core values that I would highlight is integrity. You can’t have integrity if you don’t care, respect, trust, or if you don’t believe in accountability, which is in turn a pre-requisite to sustainability.
Volunteering gave me a door to a world of high-level developmental work within a powerful and historic organization like UNICEF.
This article was produced with the kind support of Online Volunteer Abbey Gibson. Find out more on how to volunteer online or engage Online Volunteers.
