Best Buddies is an organisation at Northeastern University that aims at providing guidance and support to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The people who are provided mentorship in this organisation are from communities in and around Boston.
Kylie Schreck, a student at Northeastern University,was in high school when she volunteered to help teach a girl named Kiley. The girl had a genetic brain disorder that impairs a person’s ability of verbal communication; hence Kylie taught her how to communicate through her eyes. Working together for over a year, they learned to communicate through a device that formed sentences through tracking Kiley’s eyes movements’. Schreck is now the president of the Best Buddies, which she says is an organisation dedicated to friendship.
“The first thing we talked about was how she was feeling, which was something she couldn’t communicate before,” said Schreck, now a third-year student studying Human Services at Northeastern. “Seeing the progress that we made and the impact I could have on someone else’s life, that’s when I knew what I wanted to do with my life.”
The university has a campaign called “Give, Inspire, Transform” that works to raise money for all the student groups who work to improve the lives of the people in local communities near and around them. While Shreck wants the event to reach more people and spread wider to help as many people as they can. She says “We really want to get them out and about and give them the opportunity to have different experiences.”
“I remember one of our buddy’s parents told me, ‘I’ve been waiting for the day when I get a call from another parent saying their kid wants to have a playdate with mine. I’ve been waiting for this day ever since my son was enrolled in school,’” Schreck said. “The friendships are so important to our buddies, to their parents, and me.”
Through these little steps, the organisation is spreading its arms out to help as more and more people and is doing it in a genuinely successful manner.
Disha Mazumder