Why be a voulteer?

It’s not easy to decide one day to change your life and become a volunteer, especially in another country. There are many people that are distrustful about this idea, because they think that it’s a way to waste your time and escape from your responsibilities. In our society – where the value of things is measured by money - is not easy to understand that you can improve society also with your contribution, just sharing your skills. I’ve had many experiences as a volunteer: with teenagers in Brazil, with illiterate people in an emergency center for immigrants, in a prison and now here in Finland with disable people. It was an amazing way to become a better citizen. We receive everyday an incredible amount of information from the internet, from TV and magazines and probably we believe that this is enough to become able to think but unfortunately it’s not. It’s through the practice that you begin to understand in a better way the world around you because you have to deal with real problems, and sometimes you have to fight with misunderstanding. You have to find solutions. It means that you have to face reality, not just the theory like in school. This actually means thinking.
Being a volunteer doesn’t mean that you are a person that helps other people. This is a simplistic and also wrong idea because it suggests the existence of an unbalanced relation between who helps and who is helped. When you offer your skills to other people you receive a lot from them, probably more than you give. You find ideas, experiences, motivation, friends. The decision to offer a part of your time to support people who have difficulty in their lives represents an amazing way to fight against selfishness and build a better world. It’s very easy but the impact is enormous.

Another very common question is: why do I have to go abroad? There are so many opportunities in my country, too! This is true but sometimes we need to understand what happens in countries with totally different habits because we want to learn something special that we can apply in life after our experience. Change perspective, see with different eyes. And of course, volunteering is not something that you do only for a period: the aim is to give value to your experience, to all your life and to all the people you have met, also in your country. The experience abroad transforms you in a resource because you have a connection with a different way to solve problems.

So why don’t you have to decide to be a volunteer? Abroad, in your country, in your city… it’s the same! The important is that you want to test yourself.