Why We Volunteer

Recently, everyone on the team took some time to write up our own, personal reasons for volunteering. Here they are (they're all anonymous!):

1) Began volunteering for the sole purpose to do something more productive with my time. But now as time has progressed; I want to give back to the community. In addition, I wanted to meet new people and have fun.

2) I have been with the YAT for a number of months now and find that it is one of the most positive things that I have done. The YAT consists of 15 members who have their own individuality which they bring to the group. I also thought it would be a great aspect for me to put on to my CV and it is. Furthermore, volunteering has allowed me to make new friends, be open to new and unique ideas and also form and run my own projects. I personally think that everyone who goes into volunteering is doing something special and rewarding in contrast to working a 9-5 job :)

3) My reasons for volunteering are very different from the reasons as to why I continue to volunteer today. Initially, I was curious and considered it an opportunity for me to utilise my existing skills to carry out a project of my own choice. In the first meeting I attended, all the talk about ‘benefiting our community’, immediately altered my intention and I started seeing the bigger picture. One major aspect of that picture was working in a team. My reasons for still volunteering today, is to change other peoples perception of that dreaded ‘V’ word. Often associated with working in local charity shops or holding money collection buckets in the rain, it is so much more than that. There is no limit as to the amount of skills you obtain, regardless of how many you had in the first place; I guess you can only get better. In the space of 18 months, so many different and exciting opportunities had and have been made available to me, which has not only considered me an employable individual but one that sees being a volunteer to be a much more respectable occupation.

4) One of the main reasons for volunteering is to give something back to the community. Volunteering plays a vital aspect in my life, and for me, nothing makes me more proud than to assist and help people or to get people to help others. Volunteering gives me satisfaction that I am striving to make someone’s life better or to provide help despite not being paid. Volunteering for me is not an effort as it comes naturally. I do it because I enjoy it and not because I have to. The emphasis of delivering change and difference is always a reason why I volunteer for the YAT.

5) Volunteering provided an opportunity for me to contribute to a visibly broken community. The problems facing the working class in East London especially are ever-present and so volunteering through the YAT provided a means of alleviating some of the community’s hardships.

6) Before I joined YAT, I used to avoid any opportunity I was given to volunteer purely because I was lazy, however, this view changed when I became a YAT member. Before even getting involved physically in any events, sitting through the discussions talking about who we are and what we are trying to do opened my eyes up. I realised that everything I was to do was going to be towards making the community better; this drew me in all the more. Organisations such as YAT not only give youths something to do and get involved in, but also help change the stereo-type thoughts about youngsters. If I knew that I contributed just a little to this change of perspective, then I’d be more than satisfied; not only are the events fun to organise but the communities can become safer and more welcoming.

There have been times when people ask me what the YAT is and what they do, this gives me an opportunity to tell than a little of what I get out of being part of this team and some of the things we do. Just telling people from my personal experience makes them either proud of what I do or interested in getting involved; either way it makes me feel proud and happy inside which, for me, is the most important thing as the end of the day.

7) My reasons for volunteering were so that I can meet new people and it’s also something that would keep me busy, learn new skills and improve my confidence.

8) I started out using volunteering as an opportunity to meet new people and make new friends, and those opportunities still present themselves frequently. However, now I’m finding that I can really get passionate about an idea and want to turn it into something that can benefit others. Also, volunteering as part of a group allows me to play to my strengths and to develop them through taking responsibility for particular aspects of a project or of the team as a whole, which provides me with good preparation for positions of responsibility at work and in later life.

9) Why I volunteer: to help change the face of the youth, negative image of youth in the media and finally help contribute to showing the positive side to youth.

10) Reasons for joining the YAT: Productive uses of time, to learn new skills, interact with new people from various backgrounds and finally prepare for my future of possibly working with young people.

11) Why I volunteer: Self-improvement, get to work on interesting projects, make friends and meet new people, have a tangible effect on community.