italki - Topic discussion - Volunteering Have you ever volunteered?Where did you volunteer and for which orga

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Teacher Nelly

Topic discussion - Volunteering

Have you ever volunteered?

Where did you volunteer and for which organization?

What did you do and why did you decide to support that cause?

How can other people support your cause?

Jun 20, 2019 3:46 AM

Comments · 14

Yes, I volunteered for a mental health ad suicide prevention center as a receptionist, volunteered at hostels for a free bed, volunteered at music festivals selling rain ponchos in exchange to get into the festival for free.

It's good to volunteer in exchange for something free and also for cause that are close to me, like mental health.

June 21, 2019

Hey Teacher Nelly, my fellow South African! Nice to see you on iTalki teaching Xhosa! :)

Volunteered for several months in 2015 with an organisation called Radical Readers, sadly no longer operating to the best of my knowledge. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmArkNHVYCA" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmArkNHVYCA</a>;

It was a program which helped equip preschools with resources to teach phonetics and reading (books, posters, multimedia) and also to train teachers in letter land - a fun and effective programme for kids to learn phonetics. We saw amazing results from the programme! I got to work with kids from disadvantaged backgrounds in Diepsloot, Cosmo city and Soweto which I think as a South African was important for me to see how a lot of people in our country live. It was an amazing experience and I think I learnt just as much from the kids as they did from us. I helped in whichever ways they needed including making the video above. Mostly assisting with the lessons and helping the kids in the activities in class. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do when I left varsity and so it seemed like a good use of time to try and help my community.

In South Africa I truly believe that improving, specifically preschool and primary school educationб is the key to fixing our problems. In terms of helping this cause there are other programmes that focus on reading. People can volunteer to give an hour or two of their week to read with kids who don't get the opportunity at home. And supporting local schools is also super important.

June 21, 2019

Nelly, I already do such things and have many plans too. I only mean, in my case it is hard to call it "volunteering".

June 21, 2019

Miriam, it is not this way in Russia and with my freinds using any specific term for this would make no sense. Look, you don't call it "volunteering" when you post in your blog - though often you do that FOR others.

The term "volunteering" I think only makes sense with relation to "paid job". It is supposed to be something "necessary but not interesting". It doesn't take into account your wish to do that, your interest in doing that.

June 21, 2019

I'm big on nature and looking after it and so when I was a kid, there was a creek of water that ran alongside the walking path, and because it was on the way to a school it was filled with rubbish and junk. So, some friends and I volunteered to clean it up, for us it meant walking in the creek that was above our knees. In doing so we also happen to find someones lost wallet. We called them up and the dad of the guy gave us all the loose change in the wallet for being so honest. Not sure if this counts because technically I got money.

June 21, 2019