Reflective Journal on Service Learning Course

Taking this service learning course is really a meaningful and unforgettable experience. As I am not an ITC student, I not only have a primary understanding of garments and make many friends in this course, but also gain service experience in society and serve the community.

Our customer Guo Ming is a patient with moderate intellectual disability. He used to love to shake hands with others and greet others cheerfully. He also like to care about others in daily life. Guo Ming designs the clothes for himself. He hopes that he can get concerned by others. The jacket has many hands on it, which looks like the person who wears the clothes has been hug by many people. Moreover, the hands including different colors and different sizes, which symbolizes different ages and different colors of skin.

Although I know nothing about making clothes, my teacher and teammates are very kind to me. In the first lecture, I make a pen bag with the help of teachers and teammates. It was my first time to use the sewing machine and I have found lots of joy during the sewing process.

We first received the drawing paper from the customer, and then we did the material sourcing in the next few days. We worked in pair to search cloth with cyan and dark grey color, as well as some fuzzy fur to make hands on the clothes. After we collected the materials and chose some of them that we preferred, we had a meeting with our client. It was our first time to meet Guo Ming. Accompanied by his orderly, He was very shy and nervous, and seldom spoke. We showed the cloth to him and encourage him to choose which he liked best. He chose his favorite cyan and we had a short conversation. However, things went bad as Guo Ming’s mood became more and more unstable, starting to slap his face heavily. His orderly took him away and we took a photo with her. It was my first time to see a patient with moderate intellectual disability. I felt great shocked for what he did to himself and I felt a sense of mission that I should show more sympathy for those patients and care more about them.

In the following process, I mainly did some simple cutting work and bought extra materials for my teammates. They are all very kind that they taught me how to cut the pattern and the cloth by using pins to fix. Moreover, I was active in adjusting atmosphere in my team, as I always encourage my teammates and cheer for them.

During our winter holiday break, we finished our garments together and made some fuzzy gloves for our clients. We took the clothes to Guo Ming to measure whether the size is fit enough. He seemed to like the clothes very much, which made us feel very happy. I felt so grateful that I can bring happiness to my client and made him enjoy the care from others.

We have already prepared everything few weeks before the catwalk show. However, two weeks before the catwalk show, Guo Ming’s orderly told