Volunteering: the perks are free

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
‘I suppose volunteering can be addictive,’ admits Joanna Foster, 24. Joanna’s first experience of volunteering involved travelling to Tanzania to help build a medical dispensary. ‘I saw the country in a way I would never have been able to as a tourist. And it gives me a really great feeling to know that I helped make it possible for children to get immunisations, where they couldn’t before.’

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.’