Giving back to move forward
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who started volunteering when she was 7 years old and hasn’t stopped since. She even got herself a job in the sector after 15 years! She currently still spends a large proportion of her free time volunteering and giving back to causes she truly believes in.
That girl was me.
As a young volunteer I didn’t really know what I was doing and how I was helping others, but it was something that stayed with me until today. From being a part of my local Scout group, to volunteering during my time at university, giving back in the form of volunteering is one of the things I’m most passionate about and one that has made me want to build a career in volunteering and non-formal education.
Volunteering has given me some of my best friends, some of my best life experiences and helped me become the woman I am today.
A big part of what I do for a living is about giving back. My job gives me the opportunity to support others in finding volunteering opportunities, but I also get to meet a lot of different organisations doing fantastic work.
Because I truly believe that giving back is the way forward, I spend my free time giving back as part of two other organisations, as Chair of the UK Student Volunteering Network (www.studentvolunteeringnetwork.com), and as a Co-Founder of SPEAK London (www.speak.social). I also take part in other sporadic volunteering opportunities and these experiences continue to shape my entire life in the most positive way and consistently show me that there is something incredible about giving back through volunteering.
For me, volunteering is one of the best ways for us to become a kinder, stronger and more cohesive society.
So, what should you consider when you want to do a little bit more to support others by volunteering your time, energy, and skills?
- Make sure you can actually do it.
Intentions are great, but we need to ensure they match our actions. Make sure that you have the time, the energy, the motivation and that you are committed to volunteering. There are a lot of resources that go into organising volunteer opportunities, and one of the worst things that can happen is for an organisation (and its service users) to expect your support and not get it at last minute. There are a lot of ways to give back through volunteering and short-term or episodic volunteering are always an option.
2. Choose wisely
The internet is fantastic at raising awareness for the incredible work that so many brilliant organisations are doing around the world however, the internet has also been great at spreading messages about organisations that might not be that reliable or that might be hindering their local communities instead of helping. So choose wisely and be aware of any red flags such as orphanage volunteering (which is an entire blog post in itself), transparency about the use of the donated funds, the overall benefits the organisation provides, the organisation’s theory of change and how it hopes to achieve its intended impact in the short, medium and long term etc.
3. It’s personal and it takes work
Volunteering is an incredibly personal thing to do. We don’t talk about it enough, but it really is. It relates with your values; your motivations and it must fit in with your lifestyle. No one can choose it for you. So be prepared to do your own research, to fill out application forms, have an informal interview and be asked to do specific training. Becoming a volunteer can take its time and it’s a good thing that it does.
4. It’s a learning experience
You have made a choice to volunteer because you believe you can help by sharing your skills, your knowledge and / or your time with others and surely it was not a decision you made lightly. However, it might be the case that you don’t have all the answers, and that’s ok. One of the best things that comes with volunteering is that you receive as much as you give, sometimes more! So get excited about all the beautiful things you’ll receive from the experience and be prepared to listen, to adapt and to learn something new everyday.
5. Manage those expectations!
Manage your expectations about the impact you will have, and the impact volunteering will have on you. Your experience will be very different if you volunteer for a one-off project for 3 hours than if you consistently volunteer for an organisation for a longer period. Both options will be valuable in their own way, but they will feel different. Often, we don’t really get to see the incredibly positive impact we’re having when we volunteer, and more often than not we don’t expect the volunteering experience to affect us as much as it does. We all know it… “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get”
Covid-19 lockdown(s) have raised the public awareness to volunteering and showed us that individuals want to give back and support each other. It showed us how we can survive and thrive if we work together. During the National Volunteering Management conference (Ireland), Rob Jackson said: “During the spring of 2020 lockdown, we stopped being economies and we started becoming societies. We relied on our community resilience and community strength. (…) But we have now stopped becoming a society and reverted to becoming an economy, where that’s the driving principle behind everything we do”.
So when thinking about the future let’s not lose sight of this society we were able to become in 2020, and let’s continue to give back to move forward.
This article was prepared and submitted by Mariana Vieira da Rocha in her personal capacity. All opinions and views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not represent the opinions of the paradiGM community. Any views or opinions are not intended to malign any ethnic group, gender identity, organization, company or individual.
