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My experience as a volunteer firefighter in Chile | Maximiliano Salinas | TEDxYouth@NidodeAguilas


today I’m going to talk to you about
student professional life community
service and my personal experience as a
firefighter well before this we must
understand that community service is
work that is done without pay to a
certain group of people or to a group of
people so first of all it’s an action
you move out to the world you go out
there you fight for someone it’s without
pay that means you don’t you don’t get
anything in return no material
retribution and it assists someone or a
group of people in different ways
there’s hundreds of ways of doing
community service and that’s the
important part of it and going ahead
there we must understand why community
service is good for us as a world so we
live in a democratic society right well
in many places at least so as we live in
a democratic society we are the only
ourselves are the builders of our world
and our destiny and as such when we are
more free we make better decisions but
if we lack opportunities in life such as
when you lose your house when you don’t
have a good health or education these
decisions become more limited and when
we help somebody when we give a second
chance we are giving to that person an
opportunity a change in their destiny
and we make their lives much better so
going forward with that what can we say
about community service you can go out
you can teach you can clean you can help
animals the important part is making a
better environment for everybody so as
we say that in general terms we all
study at some point in our life and or
we work and of course if we study do we
have free time does anybody want to
answer some some free time right when we
study and maybe after school recess so
when we work we don’t work 24/7 even if
we have a big job
lots of work we are always dealing with
something but we still have a free time
and by that what am lots of people do
too today right they play with their
Xbox Playstation computers and we can be
stuck with this for hours right you know
you arrange a game with your friends
you’re online for hours and hours I’m
not saying you can’t do that we probably
have one of these at home everybody here
or most most of us right so we can give
a few hours a week a month during the
year giving different assistance to
people helping people going out to the
world making everybody’s life better
everybody’s the other person you’re
helping and yourself but the important
part of it is to have continuty to
continue through time helping people not
just one time as I was saying maybe once
a week maybe during weekends sometime in
the month in the year
regularly and it doesn’t matter if your
motivation to do this is either
religious political philosophical or
just because you feel it the important
part of this is to go out help and learn
yourself about it about who you’re
being set that you can always manage
your time your skills to go out to the
world and I chose one Road and this road
was becoming a firefighter I was
graduating from high school I was in
twelfth grade I was already 18 my
parents were not happy with my decision
and they said something to me and it was
let somebody else do it I didn’t like
that idea I wanted to help myself I
wanted to go out there and I felt that
being a firefighter was the best way and
at the same time I made it into college
into law school so that’s part of the
experience you start gaining every day
little by little that was growing up I
can say that that was my first fire was
huge I was right underneath that side of
the church was a huge church down in
providencia here in Santiago we had to
pull back because it the structure
it’s just huge I was it was scary
there’s lots of people that didn’t want
to go inside you have people running
from everywhere it was a monastery and
there was lots of people around and we
were there inside but we were helping
our community and that was my first
picture as a firefighter you can see my
face I was just terrified I was
exhausted I just wanted to sit down
drink water and maybe sleep but I never
gave up I kept on dragging hoses opening
of a nozzle oh never give up and as I
was developing as a firefighter I was
appointed few years later assistant to
the fire chief the fire chief we call it
commander here and I worked with him and
with different people inside and started
learning about the institution and how
it worked and how our decisions were
influential to other people either in a
car crash in a gas leak or in a fire so
I started growing up myself
that was when I graduated from college
my firefighter picture I had already
been a professor assistant and I had
passed already from high school college
and starting to work but I learned
something inside being a firefighter and
doing community service you learn to
become an a leader you learn about
leadership inside you learn to trust
your friends to trust other people
within your community that believe the
same as you do you learn the real
meaning of what being exhausted is being
tired
and overall you learn to loose your
fears in life now one thing I just want
to thank my friend Melina he he’s the
owner of the pictures just in case and
also becoming a firefighter as I was
saying before that’s when I got my law
degree I kept working and I learned also
to express myself in different
situations because community service
also gives you different elements in
life to go out to the world and to treat
people in different ways but in good
ways all the time
learning about their own situation and
you dealing with that and offering
solutions that help you not only during
doing community service but also in your
professional life you learn to meet new
people and make new friends you learn to
be away from your family like in that
picture that was Christmas Eve during my
night watch away from my family waiting
until somebody just styled the emergency
number and gave us gave us the call that
was three of us that day you learn from
different people and different
situations at different times but
overall and above all you learn to work
as a teammate an asset leader thank you
very much for your time what can I say
about this go out there help your
community look for your own wishes look
at other people around they always need
something they always need your help
thank you very much have a good day you
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