I found myself getting caught out by assumptions very recently where I assumed that what I perceived about someone's social standing and their friendship was founded. A situation arose and I reacted based on the perception only to discover that my assumption was very wrong. It is easy to knit them all together and make a person that doesn't exist with a sandcastle in the sky.

This was what I had learnt while I was in Cambridge for my Action at Home project. It doesn't just have to be about social relations but it can be messages that you want to get across to the community; to families, friends, Local authorities, MPs and NGos. So you have this clear message in your head to become a story-teller and you're convinced that everybody else understands. This is a simple assumption to have because it is so clear to you. But it is you alone. In reality, you might as well be speaking chinese.

An African woman explained her perceptions to assumptions through a title known as "The danger of a single story." She depended on American books as a child and its literature was based on a cultural background she was not familiar with. Not only did she imagine a world where everybody was white and had blue eyes, she couldn't imagine a story where people were black and wore a kanga.

This was only because the book was based on the writers own culture and not somebody else's. It is the danger of influence and how it can cause you to assume, to imagine something that does not exist in your lifetime (at that point in time). We also use them to interpret the world in which we live in. It is a belief. So how is it that I can spread a story, a message under VSO without causing possibly false beliefs or beliefs that may then be altered?

Beliefs, assumptions are much the same. Religion, we are influenced by what we read and what we learn then become inferences. This comes so naturally just to make sense of where we are and what we are about. So for instance somebody asked me; "Deafness or Deaf-hood." I chose "Deaf-hood" because I perceived it to be a culture, a community that can be misunderstood to those who have not been a part of it. Deaf-hood is also the influence to how we perceive "Deafness." In a medical setting, Deafness is just a sensory loss that can have an impact in how we communicate and how we develop as a person. I may be the only person that would view it this way and I may be one of many with the same ideology but with different inferences.

So if I am to complete this program, I will state inferences because I have been influenced to state those facts from an organisation of which I chose to take part of. I will also be promoting beliefs that are also inferences because that is what I have seen in "Third world."

So when I advertise, promote "employment and Volunteerism" the people that will be watching me will have a concept that may differ to what I am referring to. They are assumptions because it is a world, a community they know nothing of. This can then mould and develop their own concept for when they choose to do the trip themselves. Whether it is in the Philippines or in Kenya. This will then become their own personal "inference."

And so we go with inferences.