Help

These past few months I have been doing volunteering work for a sort of shelter for former victims of sex-trafficking, and my latest task has been taking this one woman to get some documents to sign up for an entrance exam so that she can enroll into a school for foreigners.

All of the people I have been tasked to help are foreigners. I think a lot about the “white savior complex” (despite not being white myself) when dealing with them, and I often worry about coming across as too bossy or privileged. Since they’re full-on adults, just like me, I struggle with knowing how much I can “order them around” while we’re doing activities where guidance is required. I’m not sure how different it would be if they were not in such a delicate position, and if they were just as privileged, and “normal”, as me.

They can also be quite rebellious and justifiably, not always agree with me and listen to what I say, and even go as far as being mean if they do not like me. If someone were to go so evidently against you, you’d normally grow to take a disliking to them, but I have to be careful as not to let it fog my role of caretaker.

Maybe I’m not just cut out for this kind of thing, as I’m definitely an overthinker and susceptible to disagreements.