Volunteering can be considered to be a voluntary act of any individual or group spontaneously providing time and labour for the welfare service of the community. Volunteers are trained in different areas they function (for example, emergency rescue, medical, and education). BAME youths can undertake volunteering activities to improve their life opportunities and contribute positively to the society in which they live.
Today's post presents in detail the benefits of volunteering for the BAME Youth
1. Enhance social skills
Volunteering activities provide you ample opportunities to meet new people from different backgrounds, talk to them and hone your social skills. By engaging yourself in working with people and interacting with them you’ll be able to acquire different skill sets.
Some of the few transferable skills that you will be able to develop through your volunteering experiences include the following:
· Active listening skills
· Abilities of relationship management
· Interpersonal communication skills
· Time management
· Communication skills
· Leadership skills
· Delegation skills
Therefore, these transferable skill sets will also assist you in developing your future personal as well as business relations.
2. Pull you out of your comfort zone
Engaging in volunteering activities can help you in overcoming personal challenges by pulling you out of your comfort zone and performing some activities that you might not know. You might have to encounter varied problems in your field of operation. You, as a volunteer, will have the responsibility to resolve those problems by exercising your critical thinking abilities.
So, stepping out of your comfort zone through volunteering activities can certainly provide you with the following six mental benefits:
- It will enhance your adaptability
- Support personal growth
- Make you more creative and resourceful
- May Improve your performance
- A sense of fulfillment through volunteering activities will lower the risk of depression
- Develop mental resilience
3. Enhance self-esteem
When you do something that you believe is worthwhile and good for others and society on the whole, then it certainly gives you a sense of achievement. This will make you feel satisfied and fulfilled in your life, and develop your level of self-confidence, and self-esteem. Volunteering activities can also fill you with a sense of pride and develop your self-identity. And in due course, the better you feel about yourself, the more likely you will have an optimistic view of your life and forthcoming goals.
Developing your confidence is extremely important if you are not employed or do not have any prior working experience. And volunteering experience can help when you're feeling low and anxious about your job search and worried about your career direction. This role as a volunteer can certainly make you feel active, engaged, useful, and industrious.
4. Volunteering provides you the opportunity to know yourself better
Knowing your abilities, interests, skill sets, and values can help you build the foundation of your successful career. Your role as a volunteer can be considered to be an effective way to know more about your abilities, your areas of strength, and even your weaknesses. It also offers you an opportunity to analyse how others perceive you and your potential.
5. Improve your job opportunities
The skills you gain and implement, the tasks you accomplish, and the result you achieve through volunteering activities will undoubtedly bring you nearer to your career goals.
Together with learning valuable skills, you will also meet many people while volunteering and this will help you to expand your connections. You can try to maintain a record or list of connections you make while carrying out your volunteering activities. This network of connections can include staff, clients, other volunteers, vendors, suppliers, board members, and many other people from different walks of life. You never know who can help you and in what ways.
In the future, if you decide on pursuing a career in a specific field of work you are volunteering in, then the contacts you make can certainly help you in improving your job opportunities.
6. Volunteering can help you find a career guide
A career guide is someone who can guide you and motivate you in your career path. They can be experienced professionals, members of a board, or even fellow volunteers. A career guide or mentor can not only help you in your present volunteering work but also assist you in achieving your long-term career objectives.
7. Volunteering provides first-hand work experience
Your volunteer experience reveals that you can get along pretty well with others, make a commitment, undertake responsibility, accomplish the tasks assigned to you and that you have the right attitudes and abilities managers want in a prospective employee.
8. The volunteering work experience looks great on your CV
Giving back and working selflessly can show that you are devoted to your society and have the skills, competencies, connections, resourcefulness, and experience required in the workplace. Therefore, please make sure that you write about the following points in your CV:
Title of position or your designation
Your job responsibilities (or job description)
Ways in which your volunteer experience is aligned with the current job you’re applying for
9. Help you find references
By being an enthusiastic and devoted volunteer, you can easily get references. Later, you can use these references in your CV while applying for paid jobs or internships. Certain volunteer organizations also provide work experience certificates to their workers. You can include these certifications in your CV or present them in your job interviews. These official documents can also show the number of hours that you dedicatedly volunteered and the skills that you've acquired through your tasks. Also, these certificates include an analysis of your work ethic and personality. You can ask your volunteer unit whether they have any provision to provide any certification.
10. Volunteering activities help you learn and practise new skills
The training and practical experience you gain through volunteering activities can help you develop new skill sets and build upon the skills that you already have. For instance, if you promote a campaign and raise awareness for a cause, or work to raise funds for a social cause, you’ll naturally develop communication skills, public speaking abilities, marketing skills, and other hard as well as soft skills.
The abilities and approaches you develop in your role as a volunteer can easily transfer to your CV. Employers attach extreme importance to these qualities. For instance, you may list that you:
Know and understand your role, the requirements, and responsibilities of a role
Are reliable
Can accomplish tasks on time
Have a positive attitude
Work collaboratively as part of a team
11. Provides a sense of community
A volunteering role can help you feel associated with those you are serving in society. This involvement may drive you to get further engaged with other aspects of your society, such as local political affairs or supporting programs you believe are vital for your community.
Cohesive Society uses a social enterprise model to promote cohesion and integration among marginalised communities.
To learn more about our projects, check here Cohesive Society Projects.
Look through our blog posts to know more about youth integration, the importance of higher education in the UK for BAME YOUTH
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