What to Consider If You're Considering University by Ken S. Coates

Author:Ken S. Coates
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2014-02-26T16:00:00+00:00

Volunteer as a Way of Discovering Yourself

We see volunteerism as an opportunity for you to connect with people, communities, and countries much less advantaged than you may be. Volunteering carries a number of personal benefits. You will, through volunteering, develop a much greater understanding of and empathy for people who are poor, physically or mentally disabled, living with a personal or natural disaster, or otherwise struggling to make it through life. You may — particularly if you work directly with people in need (as opposed to through third-party organizations) — develop real compassion, acquired through thinking about the differences between your own life and the lives of other people who suffer through no direct fault of their own. Your appreciation for the complexities of the human condition will grow immensely if you make connections with people from other communities, countries, societies, and cultures.

By volunteering, you will test yourself in many difficult and complex ways. Dealing directly with hungry people is never easy, and it is much more challenging when you know that you will not face real privation in your life at home. The first exposure to real poverty is, for most people, a real eye-opener, upsetting their understanding of humanity and sparking a concern for social justice. Encountering wide-spread and deliberate environmental destruction, the brutal mistreatment of women, religious or cultural discrimination, massive slums, inadequate water supplies, and the like will have a profound impact on your world-view. Some of you will be unaffected and simply see your wealth and comfort as something you have earned or deserve by natural right. A significant number, though, are changed forever, and set forth on a life marked by concern for others.

Volunteering will probably not transform you into a humanitarian like Mother Teresa (who worked for decades with the poor and ill in India) or a social activist like Canada’s Stephen Lewis, who has been a world leader in the battle against HIV/AIDS. Not that it would be a bad thing if you became saint-like, of course — it’s just unlikely. At root, the fundamental benefit of volunteering for you is that it will make you confront yourself and draw attention to your assumptions about both your place in the world and the challenges facing the poor, the dispossessed, and the uncared for. As a bonus, it will set you apart from the swarm.

Volunteerism provides enormous opportunities for global exploration. You can work on a Habitat for Humanity project in your community, building homes for people who need basic shelter, or you can join a group working in Mozambique to build houses for women and children affected by HIV. Free the Children permits you to raise funds locally to support educational and health programs in the developing world. Craig and Marc Kielburger, founders of Free the Children, are brilliant and admirable examples of what Canadian young people can do. There are thousands of charities doing great work at the local, national, and international levels.

Katimavik and Cuso

A generation ago, Canada had a small

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.