Although both terms of community service and volunteering have a slight difference, both of them share a similarity: to provide help or assistance without getting paid. Everyone knows that helping other people won’t only give you good karma, but it also gives you a good feeling. There is a sense of accomplishment when you can help others and how your work means so much to them.
However, most people are overwhelmed about the idea. They don’t really know where to start. Most of them are idealistic by thinking about joining popular and big organization. But you can actually start small – start from your surroundings. By starting small, you can work slowly. You should be able to progress gradually so you can make a significant impact to your community.
Volunteering and Future Career
Have you ever thought that your volunteer action can actually provide a solid career guidance for your future? You see, when you help out with different activities or organizations, you are basically trying different kinds of expertise and skills. This opportunity allows you to ‘try’ different jobs so you know which one suits you the best.
If you are still doubtful about your future career, volunteering or community service can help. Do you love working with kids? Try a volunteer work at the local daycare or YMCA. Have a passion in environment? You want to look at Greenpeace or similar organization around your neighborhood. Wondering what teaching would be like? Why not volunteering at school? Want to be a professional vet or doctor? You can start from the local animal shelter or hospital. The options are limitless, but you need to know where to start.
How to Help?
Different people have different passion. Some people like to work with kids while some can’t stand them. Some people are great at teaching and sharing knowledge, while some don’t. You need to figure out how you want to provide the assistance. By leading a group? By teaching? By organizing events? And what about the environment: do you like outdoors better than indoors, or vice versa? Are you comfortable with peace and quietness, like in a library, or do you prefer working in a busy place like in hospital? After all, you do want to help with a genuine smile on your face, right? And it makes the job so much easier too!
Collect Information
You need to start collecting information about the work or the program. Talk to the guidance counselors at school – they can be a good starting point. Not to mention that many schools have already had their community service and volunteer programs, so you can join and be a part of them. Have a discussion with your parents. Are they okay with your intention to take part in the programs? If your friends have joined any volunteer work or community group activity, you can also start there. In short, try to get as many as trusted info and insight.
This is how to start your volunteer work, if you are sure that you want to do this. Afterwards, things should be easier and you should be able to choose which work or which service suits your preference.
Why Introducing Volunteering to Your Kids?
A lot of people join volunteer work when they are adults. But it doesn’t hurt to introduce the concept and the idea to your kids – even in their early years. Kids are great imitators. If you want them to have empathy and compassion, you need to show them some examples of your own. After all, volunteering have their own benefits, especially to teach these kids that they should be thankful for what they have and they can always help others in need. What other benefits to expect from introducing volunteering to kids?
Being Responsible
You can teach your kids how to be responsible individual. When you join a volunteer work, you need to be committed to it. When you are given a task, you are responsible for it. You can show them how to do your best, how to be always on time, and how be proud of the outcome. You will teach your kids a sense of responsibility for the community’s well-being.
A Sense of Gratitude
When you introduce volunteering to kids, you basically teach them a sense of gratitude of what you all have. Volunteering often involves helping out the unfortunate – people who have less and poor. When your kids see the condition, they can develop this gratitude so they won’t complain about their own condition. They will always be thankful for what they have, understanding that they have more than enough when compared to the unfortunate ones.
Tolerance Development
When you work in a volunteer program or community service, you will be working with people from different ages, education, ethnicity http://45.77.241.123 , background, and so much more. You will also help people with different abilities and background too. This is a good chance to introduce the concept of tolerance, understanding, and acceptance. The kids can also learn that diversity can bring people together when they share the same values
Positive Sacrifice
Volunteering can teach kids that the world is bigger than ourselves. It’s not about me, me, and me all the time, but how your presence can bring positive outcome to other people. When you donate old clothes, you are teaching them that sacrifice is good. You can ask them to participate by donating stuff that they don’t use anymore. Giving away items will also teach them that they shouldn’t be selfish. You can also teach them that hanging on to things isn’t important. What’s important is how you can be of a value to others.
A Sense of Confidence and Self Awareness
Kids can learn that each individual is unique. Even a person can make a huge difference and impact in other people’s lives if they are truly committed. Volunteering is a great opportunity to send positive message to the kids that they are worthy. An individual is as great as hundreds of people because they can touch and make impact in other people’s lives.
Wise Time Management
If your kids don’t have any activity to do or they don’t join in any after-school programs, volunteering can fill their idle time just great. You also send a message that it’s better to do something by helping people instead of not doing anything at all.
In the end, there are so many benefits that you can reap from introducing volunteering to your kids. Once they see that their work is appreciated and it can change lives in a positive way, they will be encouraged to continue. It’s one of the best legacies you can give to them.
Different Types of Volunteer Work
Do you know that volunteering comes in various sizes and types? There are volunteer works with the popular names, and there are those with the local community. There are short-term or one single project types, and there are long-term or several continuous project types. If you are new to volunteering, things can be quite overwhelming because there are so many programs to choose from! It would help to understand each of the volunteering types as well as the strength and also the possible downsides.
Short-Term Programs
As the name suggests, the programs are mostly short-term, lasting from a week to around three or four months. It mainly focuses on the cultural learning exposure and experience. This one is pretty common among other volunteering programs at http://45.77.247.36 because it doesn’t take any special skill or ability to join in. The best thing about it is that you can focus on the experience and the exposure, especially if you are doing a new activity or situated in a new place. The downside, however, is that it isn’t continuous so you don’t really know the impact and what happens to it. It doesn’t support long-term plan either, which may not be good news for those who like to volunteer.
Long-Term Programs
On the contrary to the short-term volunteer work, this long-term programs focus on empowering the local community and its people. Volunteers are often required to have professional qualifications or specific educations because there would be transfer of skills. Such long-term types are usually for non-profit activities. The best perk about it is that you can interact with the locals and see the results. However, it is a long-term program so you can’t expect an instant result.
Conservation Programs
If you are into environment and Mother Earth, this would be the ideal program to choose. Such programs are often related to environmental and conservation works. The focus is generally on environmental problems (whether in global or local scale). It may involve dealing with threatened environments (can be on ocean or land), sustainable or organic farming projects, or endangered animals. The greatest advantage of this program is the result-orientated manner, so you can measure and identify your own impact.
However, such a program is often not welcomed. Not everyone is happy with your efforts to save the planet, especially if it gets in their way of gaining profits or advantage. A lot of companies gain billions of profits from destroying the land, and they hate the idea that you will get in their way, so they won’t be able to make such a huge profit anymore.
Emergency or Relief Programs
The focus is generally on emergency cases and situations which usually arise from natural disasters or conflicts. Hurricane relief efforts or refugees are some of the most common examples of such a program. The program generally focuses on basic needs and runs on short notice. You will often deal with providing sanitation, shelter, food, medicine, and water. The advantage is that you can see the impact directly. However, such a situation is usually stressful – and mostly emotional too. If you can’t work under pressure, this is a program to avoid.
By knowing the different characteristics of the programs, you know which one suits your objectives and preference. This can help you narrow down your options and not be overwhelmed with everything.
Five Questions to Ask Yourself when Choosing a Volunteer Program
When you are interested in doing volunteer work or community service, the initial process can be overwhelming because of the many organizations or programs out there. Naturally, you need to do a thorough research to make sure that you have an aligned goals (or purpose) with the organizations. It doesn’t help to join organizations focusing on environment and reservation if you are more interested in helping animals or kids, for instance.
To help you make the research easier, there are several questions that you need to ask before choosing any organization or program. Find out the answers to these questions and you should be able to make decisions based on them.
What Is the Main Goals and Aims?
Naturally, you should have several organizations that pique your interest. And you would compare one another, for sure. While doing so, you need to understand each organization’s primary goals and aim. By looking at the goals, you can learn about the ethos. Finding the goal is pretty easy – just go to the mission statement section and you can learn from there.
If you still have questions, you can contact the organization and ask them directly. It will also help to read their promotional literature, such as http://128.199.249.99 websites, brochures, or leaflets, to understand more about the organization.
How They Choose the Volunteers?
Every organization has their own specific requirements or standards when choosing volunteers. Do they require professional qualifications or the general ones are enough? Do they require prerequisites like religious beliefs, previous working experience, age limits, or such thing alike? Organizations generally have their own program listing, but it doesn’t hurt to contact them and ask them for confirmation.
What Are Volunteers’ Working and Living Conditions?
If you volunteer in a program that is close to home and you can easily commute to, then you may not need to know the accommodations or facilities. But in the event that you are volunteering in a place that is far from home, you need to know about the facilities, accommodation, and availability of transport.
You also need to collect information about major health issues in the area. Do they provide insurance? Do you have to arrange it by yourself? In most cases, you may have to share accommodations with other volunteers. What about the arrangement? You don’t want to arrive on spot only to find out that it is in a remote place and it doesn’t have any running water either!
Do They Connect You with the Former Volunteers?
You want to gather information from those who have been involved in the projects and who have gone through everything. They can give you valuable info, handy tips or tricks, and helpful advice about the whole thing. They are the ones who understand the program’s ethos and they have been through it.
Ask the organization if they can arrange a meeting with the former volunteers. Such organizations can generally manage an alumni contact gathering. If they can’t, they can provide you with each participant’s email address so you can contact them right away.
Do They Have Volunteers’ Job Description?
Just to make everything clear, you need to ask for the work’s job description. You need to know the amount of work clearly, with whom you will be working with, the organizations’ expectation from the volunteers’ role, and the numbers of working hours.
Those are the questions that you need to ask while performing your own research. Don’t rush things and you can make a wise decision.
The Best Places to Do Community Service
Everyone knows that taking part in a community service can be beneficial, especially for your social skills and social connections. Community service is an unpaid work that is done by either a group of people or a person that can help and benefit others. Some community services can be focused on certain places. And there are some of the best places to help others.
Schools
This is one of the most common and popular places where community services often happen. There are many volunteers and many programs available. You can also volunteer at a different school, your own, or the one that you used to go to. If you are creative or enjoy teaching, and you like working with teenagers or kids, then this would be the ideal option. This is also a great pick if you are thinking about having a career in education. The example work to do is supervising programs after school, creating murals, chaperoning, or tutoring students.
Hospitals
Hospitals often hold community services and have various activities. If you like being in a fast-paced and busy environment, you aren’t afraid of diseases, or you are thinking about having a career in the health and medical subject, then this can be your greatest option. You will start slow and have a few duties. But if you decide to have a long-term relationship at the place, you may be given more responsibilities. You can start from playing or interacting with young patients, transporting patients to different rooms, stocking the medical supplies, or delivering gifts to patients.
Nursing Homes
Many retirement communities and nursing homes depend on volunteers to help with their residents. Volunteers can organize fun events or keep the residents active. This chance is good for those who have outgoing personality and love spending times (and interacting) with senior citizens. You can host events such as playing dadu online, bingo nights or dance nights, help the residents with their daily activities, or reading to them.
Food Banks
Whether it is food depositories, Soup Kitchen, or Food Banks, these are also the common places where poor families or homeless people go to. They are places that arrange food distribution or accept food donation for the poor and homeless people. They often depend on volunteers to manage their work, especially in reducing hunger and distributing food. Some often serve meals on the site – some even grow (and manage) their own food.
It would be perfect for you to work in Food Bank if you like gardening or cooking. If you like helping the poor without having to have so much interaction with their beneficiaries, this would also be the perfect opportunity. You can work by delivering meals, organizing food drives, cooking at the kitchen, or sorting food donation.
Animal Shelter
Volunteers can help the operation and the running of the shelters, since they only have small budgets and yet they have to take care of the many animals. The volunteers really matter because it can reduce their work load. This place is perfect for animal lovers or those who want to have a career within animal care industry. The example work may include walking the dogs, interviewing potential owners, providing and doing basic vet care, cleaning the cages, and feeding the animals.
These places are the common options for community services because there are different activities to do. You should ask around and decide where you want to go based on your interest and common activities to do.