| Volunteering: the perks are free
If it’s good enough for Davina and Mariella, it’s good enough for you. Choosing to work for free is a canny and caring move If you’re under the impression that volunteers are generally well meaning but, essentially, boring people with too much time on their hands, and prone to wearing their hearts on their sleeves, it’s time to adjust your mindset. Volunteering is one of the trendiest social activities around – second only to dancing as a source of public enjoyment, according to one recent survey by the National Council for Volunteering. An estimated 22 million people are getting involved, in the UK, already – and they’re not all making jam for the Women’s Institute, or knitting jumpers for orphans in Eastern Europe. Everyone’s at it Lucy Butler of south London is a perfect example of someone who has got as much out of volunteering as she put in. Lucy left school at 15 with no qualifications, and was pregnant by 16. With a child to raise and no real work experience, she felt she had nothing to offer any prospective employer. Signing up with a Government-sponsored pilot scheme, she opted to work with children with learning disabilities. It was just what she needed to boost her self-esteem. ‘The placement gave me bags of confidence. I loved it to bits,’ she says. Lucy wants to continue volunteering and is now applying for jobs as a support worker, something she never thought possible. Sian Austen, 27, already had a degree when she decided to volunteer. ‘I was unemployed for six months. I had finished a degree but there were no jobs around. I was going to the job centre every couple of weeks and took a course but it was a complete washout.’ Sian was beginning to feel very frustrated, when she saw an ad for volunteers in her local community. ‘The people running the course said, ‘don’t go for it’, but I ignored their advice. It was the best thing I ever did.’ Sian ended up organising science workshops for 5-7 year olds in a neighbourhood primary school. ‘Initially, I did it because I thought it would look good on my CV. By the end, the benefits were much more. I got to meet some great people, and working with those kids dispelled a lot of the myths I had read in the media about young people in this community. When I started, I expected all of them to be carrying machetes, but it wasn’t like that at all.’ Sian now has a job as a manager at a local charity. The prestige that volunteering can add to a CV will not only benefit young people like Lucy and Sian, who are just entering the workforce. Anyone returning to work after a career break, whether it was to raise a family, because of illness or for any other reason, can enhance and update their CV through volunteer work. Community projects are recognised by most employers as a valuable means of developing what they call ‘soft skills’ – qualities like commitment, team spirit and good communication, all skills increasingly valued in today’s workplace. When two jobs are better than one Once a week, Kirat Nandra, a credit control manager at Lloyds Insurance, shuts down her computer and trades her office in the City for a busy classroom. There she meets her reading partner for an hour of stories and chat. Kirat says the scheme is about much more than just literacy. ‘It’s not just being able to read a book. It’s about trying to educate the kids and let them know they have the capability to do better. You feel you’re giving something back, and someone is trying to learn from you.’ ‘It’s a win-win situation,’ agrees Sam Hart, 31, the deputy editor of The Big Issue, where the entire staff recently volunteered to act as mentors to young people interested in pursuing a career in journalism. ‘Not all the people who come in here are going to end up deciding they want to be journalists, but they’ll all have had the opportunity to try it out with individual guidance. For the mentors, the benefits are getting to work with that enthusiasm. It reminds them of what it was about the job that they liked in the first place. Most of them have really enjoyed the experience and are keen to do it again.’ Reaching out Now back in the UK, Joanna hasn’t given up volunteering. Twice a week she mans the phones for Saneline. Run by the mental health charity, Sane, Saneline offers emotional and crisis support to people coping with mental illness as well as their friends and families. ‘At first it was quite daunting. I thought I was a good listener, but I had never been in a situation where I felt so unskilled. But the training was fantastic and, by the penultimate session, I knew I could do it.’ Most charities working in sensitive areas will interview and train their volunteers to prepare them for some of the more difficult aspects of the work they’ll be doing. Similarly, anyone who volunteers to work with children will be subjected to police checks to protect the children they’ll be working with. Ask her why she does it, and Joanna laughs. ‘To save the world’ is her answer. ‘I don’t think I’m going to get the Nobel Peace Prize, but I figure I can reach whatever ripe old age I reach, and I’ll be able to know that I did my part and made a difference.’ Dot Jeffcott, 48, from Warwickshire is another person who really gets a kick out of volunteering. ‘Personally, I’ve always liked small mammals – mice, shrews, voles but, especially, bats. I knew that bats didn’t suck blood and all that rubbish and I liked watching them, but it wasn’t until a bat got stuck in my house that I realised what I could do.’ Dot is a member of her local bat group and, along with her husband, is one of the hundreds of volunteers who are entirely responsible for monitoring bat populations in the UK. If it weren’t for volunteers, this valuable work wouldn’t be done. As for the personal benefits, Dot is in absolutely no doubt. ‘People laugh when I say I used to be afraid of small spaces, spooked in the dark and scared of heights, but still I volunteered to be a bat watcher,’ she giggles. ‘It’s crazy but this weekend I’ll be climbing up high ladders to check roosting boxes. I’ve even stepped out on narrow joists in cramped ceilings. All because I thought that if I might see some bat droppings, it would definitely be worth it.’ If this sounds like your cup of tea, contact the Bat Conservation Trust, or see the next page for other ideas. Further information
Community Service Volunteers
TimeBank
Sane - 020-7422 5539
REACH National Council for Voluntary Organisations - 0800 279 8798 National Centre for Volunteering - 020-7520 8900, open Tues-Fri 2-4 p.m. National Association of Volunteer Bureaux - 0121 633 4555
Millennium Volunteers
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