Skills-Based Volunteering — The Next Level of Second Skilling

Early Exposure
As a youth, I was exposed to volunteerism on many occasions with my experiences being pretty varied, ranging from activities with special needs students as a Boy Scout to Overseas Community Involvement Projects (OCIPs).
One thing that bugged me after returning from OCIP trips was that I had gone over with no real skills to contribute in a meaningful way during my trip to Philippines to paint buildings and teaching English in Thailand.
Let me be very honest here. I was really only qualified for the volunteer work I did as a Boy Scout which involved camping and kayaking with the special needs students. Up to that point, I had never painted a wall in my life and did not know how to differentiate past perfect, past perfect simple and past perfect continuous tense!
Rediscovery
Fast forward 11 years and I got back into volunteering after joining NUS, where I discovered that our medical and nursing students were going on OCIP trips to provide nursing and medical services.

Inspired by those students, I joined the Waterways Watch Society in 2015. The society is an environmental non-profit organization that was formed in 1998 with a mission to bring people together to protect our waterways. They do this via regular weekend patrols and educational programmes on bicycles, on foot and occasionally on power boats.

As I was already a kayaking coach and had seen the amount of trash in the waterway over the past decade. Working with them to lead educational programmes on kayaks or drive the power boat during those programmes was a no-brainer.
The Next Level
This year, I decided to take this one step further. Instead of volunteering using a skill that I was already proficient in, I would attend lessons to pick up a new skill and volunteer using the skills I had learnt. This form of skills based volunteering would also serve as a motivational tool to encourage mastery.
After looking around, I decided to pick up barbering and started volunteering with the Backalley Barbers, a project by Geylang Adventures. Backalley Barbers is a regular event of Geylang Adventures where the team offers haircuts to whoever might be in need of one.

Lessons began on a hot and humid Saturday at The Red Box in Somerset and before I knew it, I had completed the course. Just a month later, I found myself at the Econ Medicare Centre in Braddell, sweating buckets as I tried my best to remember what I was taught. So far, I have volunteered with Backalley Barbers twice and have 8 haircuts to my name. Although it has been fairly stressful to be volunteering with my low skill level, it has certainly been an interesting way to force myself out of my comfort zone.
The great thing about this experience so far is that not only do I expand my repertoire of skills, I find myself learning more about empathy as I communicate with the elderly whose hair I am cutting. And of course, breaking stereotypes while I am at it. I still remember the first time I turned up to give haircuts. The coordinator from Econ Medicare Centre was quick to notice and exlaim that the hairdresser is a guy.
You Can Do It Too!
You can start volunteering your skills too. Simply head over to the giving.sg website and check out the available opportunities. There are even options to filter opportunities by causes, skills, location and months!

Kenneth is an education management professional with a passion for the outdoors, coaching and adult education. He is currently promoting lifelong learning as a member of the SkillsFuture Initiative at James Cook University.