Even though I’ve been working here for more than two years, I still consider myself to be a permanent employee even though I began as a volunteer and officially am one today. Although it has always been a pastime of sorts, teaching is much more than this. Sneha Malhotra, a volunteer with a Delhi-based NGO that instructs underprivileged youngsters, claims that she has gained more from this than the students she has been teaching, this is exactly why volunteering is important.
Students may not place volunteering at the top of their priority list, but those who have volunteered can attest to how rewarding the experience is. Giving back to society is at the heart of volunteerism, yet that is not its main focus. You learn a lot of useful stuff from it.
These 5 things will tell you why volunteering is important:
- Enhances your talents – Volunteering exposes you to a vast array of chances while also assisting you in developing your current ones. You learn things from it that can’t be taught in a school. Consider the skill of teamwork, which is crucial in today’s employment market and is often required in volunteer work. We cannot emphasise this enough. It inspires the development of new interests, hobbies, and viewpoints. A voluntary internship may provide you with the chance to try out all of these activities. You might be surprised by how excellent you are at something you have never tried before. Your career may literally be decided by your voluntary work!
- Meeting varied groups – Volunteering brings people together from all walks of life. Interaction with coworkers is a fantastic networking opportunity. My buddy, a medical student, completed a summer internship as a volunteer at a nearby hospital, where he met his current mentor. It increases your interpersonal skills and broadens your awareness of cultures. Employers often express frustration that interns lack the communication skills they need to succeed. Volunteering could be able to help you stop that.
- Learn about yourself – Volunteering broadens your personality span by exposing you to a variety of situations and locations in addition to providing professional assistance. Being there at such a school and working with the students is a very different experience than seeing underprivileged youngsters learn there on a television programme. Nothing else can offer you a fresh perspective on life that is full of appreciation.
- Feeling of accomplishment – Picture the joy you have when a charity event is a success or when the students you taught succeed. Volunteering, according to Megha Rastogi, a first-year college student who works in the Social Service Guild, can be very satisfying for those who wish to be the agents of change. As has previously been said, volunteering is fundamentally about giving back to society.
- Career advancement – While applying for other internships, without much prior work experience to show to your employer, volunteering stints could vouch for your all-around abilities, including organising events, making the best use of the limited resources available, handling operations, managing people, and more. These experiences can help you strengthen your CV even if you apply for further education abroad.
How many tales have you heard of individuals leaving their comfortable lifestyles in affluent cities and moving here to create their own charities or schools? It must include something really valuable. For students, it ought to be required! It doesn’t demand a lot of time commitment, aids in networking, frees us from our monotonous daily routine, and, most significantly, provides us with the chance to change the world.
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