Giving just a little back can go a long way and prove an inspirational experience
GIVE BACK IN 2012. Give your time. Your skills and talents. Your companionship. Volunteering costs nothing but the experience of people involved in charitable or community endeavours suggests that making volunteering a priority in 2012 could vastly improve the quality of your year.
THE EXPERTS
“The silver lining on the very dark cloud of recession has been the response of many individuals who decided to get more engaged in their communities through volunteering,” says Yvonne McKenna, chief executive officer of Volunteering Ireland. She describes volunteering as “one of the most profound expressions of democracy and citizenship” and a way for people to make an immediate impact on their community.
It’s good for you too. “There’s a much more mature attitude to volunteering or participation now. It’s recognised more as an exchange than just an act of ‘helping those less fortunate than ourselves’. The reality is that volunteering is both give and take. It’s good for the recipients but it’s also good for the volunteer themselves, their community and their society.”
It’s time, she suggests, to rethink volunteering and to recognise the diversity it represents. “Volunteering doesn’t always have to be formal, you don’t need to join an organisation or sign up for a specific initiative. The recent UN State of World’s Volunteerism Report highlighted the importance of what they called ‘informal volunteering’.”
This could mean anything from dropping unwanted clothes to a charity shop to calling on an older neighbour to check how they are. It’s also about communities relying on their own resources. She points to the Grow It Yourself movement and the rise in community gardens and allotments as an example.
“It’s impossible to sum up volunteering as just ‘an’ activity,” she says. “It is fundraising and it is befriending and it’s coaching the team and making cakes for a charity sale. It’s all of this and more. What connects volunteers is the act of giving time to others. When you think of it that way it’s impossible to put limits on it.”
More than 25 years ago Mary Nally called a meeting in her village of Summerhill, Co Meath to discuss the fact that there was nothing for older people to do in the village. Forty people turned up. From there an active retirement association was set up which ultimately became Third Age, a national organisation with 1,000 older volunteers across the country. They are involved in the Senior Help Line and Failte Isteach, where volunteers give English classes to immigrants. Through the Third Age National Advocacy Programme, trained volunteers speak up and advocate for older people in nursing homes.
Nally suggests that those interested in volunteering should start locally. “Look around your own community, see what is happening there and identify projects you’d like to get involved with,” she says.
While the benefits to the recipients are obvious, Nally is passionate about how volunteering can benefit the giver. “There is an excellent body of research now which proves the value of volunteering to the giver in terms of fulfilment, self-esteem, satisfaction, remaining connected and engaged with life, increasing social contacts and learning new skills. I think all of us can relate to that good feeling we get when we give, especially if the gift is an unselfish act to help another person. I’d encourage everyone to get involved with volunteering in any way they can.”
RI
volunteer.ie
Volunteering activities in your area
servethecity.ie
Get involved in Dublin
onlinevolunteering.org
Matching volunteers with organisations
thirdageireland.ie
Promoting older people as a vital community resource
