Have you noticed that almost everyone suddenly milling around the idea of volunteering abroad? Learned individuals cannot render their services for free if there’s no underlying benefit. This brings arguments like, what benefits does volunteering bring your way? Can you volunteer after retirement? Is volunteering abroad important?
After graduation, saddled with a load of unemployment, volunteering abroad has become the only viable option students can undertake.
Volunteering is one medium to utilize your valuable skills and knowledge. You don’t have to throw in the towel just yet, volunteering gives a sense of accomplishment off the feeling of unworthiness that unemployment breeds.
It is not just a means to an end but can present endless opportunities you may never have access to unless opportune to have tall relatives in strategic places.
Meanwhile, the table of content below will show all we will discuss bordering on the importance of volunteering abroad and the benefits of volunteering. Stay with us!
WHY IS VOLUNTEERING IMPORTANT
A good number of people have confessed that volunteering was good for their souls. Touching a life goes a long way in fulfilling ones dreams. It is never about you in most cases but the people who need you. Volunteering is very important to your career as well.
Since employers are only hiring people with experience, volunteering will help you gain a mileage on your resume. It will satisfy your working hunger and will give you further experiences that you might never have gotten by being hired directly.
Most importantly, you get a chance to offer your skills to those who direly need them but can hardly afford them.
Also read: 20 BIBLE VERSES ABOUT VOLUNTEERING
10 BENEFITS OF VOLUNTEERING
There are so many benefits of volunteering but here are the top ten benefits according to research and data analysis.
1. Test of Kindness to humanity
Many organizations that call out for volunteers are stationed in countries or parts of countries that cannot afford hiring and paying the required personnel.
Some of these countries are ravaged by calamities and natural atrocities that they just need people to be there for them.
Organizations like Peace Corp and Doctors Without Borders, send volunteers to such countries. The other day, when Israel hit Afghanistan, getting doctors was hell.
People had to volunteer their services. There was a volcanic eruption in Congo a few days ago and volunteer services were needed direly.
When you volunteer here, you give your services to people who desperately need them and yet cannot afford them. This is the epitome of service to humanity.
2. Beefing up the resume
Volunteering gives you experience.
In most call-outs for employment, you will be asked to have at least 2years of work experience to even qualify. The number one requirement demanded by most companies nowadays is experience.
This shows that qualification without experience is almost useless. Many people are qualified, my friend. Some even better qualified than you are. The only thing that makes you stand out is evidence of experience and proof that you have actually had hands-on experience with a renowned organization. Where do you get the experience? You volunteer. Many organizations will give you recommendation letters and certificates to help you add flesh to your resume after college.
3. Gaining professional experience
Professional expertise is attained through practice. You have heard it being said, practice makes perfect, right? Working hands on hones your skills and makes you a better expert in your area of specialization. Experience is really important.
4. Opportunity to learn new skills on the job
Most firms and organizations that call out for volunteers provide room for training and in service opportunities. You will be trained in courses that will help you render your services effectively.
There is also room for new free courses that are certified while on the specific jobs. This is a rare opportunity that will go a long way in making your resume better and giving you a wide scope of experience.
5. An Avenue for Learning work relations
As a student, you don’t get a chance to interact with people.
Volunteering gives you a chance to interact with people in your field of study, those with experience, and those who are better than you are. you get to learn from seasoned specialists.
If you are a retired volunteer, then you get a chance to help out a newbie in the profession and offer your experience. A whole lot of people need your presence you know.
Also, in the field you meet your clients and learn how to handle them. The people you will be serving will give you a personal experience. Your colleagues either in the same field or outside your area of specialization will teach you work ethics and relations.
6. Stimulates a desire for further studies
As a volunteer, you meet people who challenge your level of education. You might just want to be better. You might get a spark to further your skills when you get good mentoring and modeling.
Some organizations are usually willing to pay for you sometimes especially if it is a field with rare and few personnel abilities. Technical courses and science researches are usually even sponsored when you are a volunteer.
7. A chance to leave a permanent impact on people and the community at large
In Congo, a family carried a photograph of one white doctor who was volunteering with Red Cross during the Francophone war. This man had no idea that he had saved a pregnant woman from the jaws of death.
Years later, when the child was born and grown up he decided to be a doctor. His mother had told him the story of the doctor in the photograph who had saved her life and his consequently. He meets the now old man who save his life and most importantly his mother’s life in the hospital he had been hired as an intern.
The son is an intern in a hospital that gives this now old doctor routine checkup and manages his diabetes. Long story short, the young intern runs to the old doctor with a picture of him helping out his mother and collapses on his knees weeping.
He says, “Sir I am a doctor because of you. My mother is old, back at home, and alive. I have always carried this picture with me because I knew one day I will meet the doctor who save my life. It is you…”
See? You never know whose life you will touch through your volunteer work. Just offer it if and whenever you can.
8. Career satisfaction
When you see your skills transforming life and changing situations, you will definitely feel satisfied in your career. Career satisfaction is a rare and very expensive commodity now days.
People have been pushed into professions which they are not interested in. volunteering will open your eyes to new passions and thus give you career satisfaction.
9. Wages and income supplement
Some organizations pay volunteers. They call it survival stipends but they go a long way. You might get free accommodation, food and clothing too.
Some organizations like the UN, USAID AND UKAID pay really well. This should not be your main motivation to volunteer though.
Who doesn’t want to make a decent living out of volunteering anyway? And by the way, these organizations have open vacancies once in a while and you can get yourself a permanent position with a well-paying job.
Nature Has a way of rewarding kindness.
Read: 10 Best Volunteering Opportunities in South America
10. Orientation for chances and vacancies should there be need.
You stand a better chance to be absorbed into a firm, company or any organization, should opportunities open up if you are already a volunteer and inside the organization.
I had given a hint in the above importance that some organizations study volunteers and pick the best for permanent positions if interested. It is that simple. If you have been a good volunteer with great work ethos and ethics, then you can be easily absorbed into a permanent position.
HOW DOES VOLUNTEERING BENEFIT THE COMMUNITY?
Many communities cannot afford to hire and pay the task force they need for some of their crucial work stations. Some countries are torn apart by natural disasters and manmade horrors like war and all they need all the professional help there is. Your volunteer services touch not only the community but the specific individuals and leave a permanent mark.
I have read about people who volunteered abroad many years ago, as medics or other fields and their presence saved so many lives that their pictures are permanent wall hangings in homes passed down generations. You don’t want to miss the thrill of changing a life with a simple act of volunteering your skills and time for those who desperately need them.
Communities get a chance to experience people from different cultures and traditions thus expanding the scope of exposure for that community.
Those that cannot afford training experts especially for lack of colleges and universities, equipment and relevant machinery benefit a lot from volunteers.
Communities can also have exchange programs where we get some citizens volunteering in other countries in exchange of certain personnel in their home countries. This fosters good international relations.
WHY ARE VOLUNTEERS IMPORTANT TO ORGANIZATIONS?
Most organizations are non-profit. They are formed purely on humanitarian grounds. The funding they get is purely for the need at hand and employees are usually very limited. This makes them call out for volunteers who won’t require much or no pay at all. However, these organizations arrange for incentives like food, clothing and shelter to attract many volunteer.
Volunteering in an organization not only keeps you safe when abroad but also helps the organization run its errands and reach a wider scope of people with their services. It provides cheap labor to the organization thus more room to touch more lives.
Organizations are trusted more when they have an elaborate set of personnel to run the promised services. Volunteering also gives chance to locals to be a part of the projects brought by the organization.
Also read: Ultimate Guide To Volunteering Abroad Under 18 In 2024
HOW MUCH TIME SHOULD YOU VOLUNTEER?
The minimum time in most organization is usually one week. You can volunteer some hours in a day for a certain period of time depending on the need and the demand of the organization.
Also, I have seen people volunteering for as long as five years, especially with organizations like Peace Corps that handle long term projects.
Once you retire, you can volunteer your remaining years for service. There is never a limit. I have seen people volunteering for the rest of their living time until death or illness keeps them from working. Environmentalists do this always.
6 WAYS ON HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF VOLUNTEERING
- Volunteer with an organization this gives you assurance that you will be taken care of during your time of service. When in countries abroad, you might want to be sure that you will get the basic needs. This comes in handy since even currency differs and locals might take advantage of guests.
- Volunteer with a reputable firm to gain the most enviable and sort after recommendations and certificates. Any doctor who had volunteered with Doctors without borders for instance normally gets direct hiring in most hospitals.
- Be strategically positioned for available opportunities in the organizations that you volunteer in when positions and job opportunities come up.
- Give it your best so as to reap the maximum satisfaction that the volunteering was worth your time and space. There is reason you chose to volunteer. Don’t go wasting your time on things that were not your initial focus.
- Participate in all activities you signed up for to gain a wider scope of experience and get used to working. It is what you will do for a better part of your life.
- Demand for recommendations and solid evidence of your volunteer work. Letters and certificates are your best gains from organizations.
6 SURE PLACES WHERE YOU CAN FIND VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
Here are some of the places where you can get details on volunteer opportunities:
- The internet – google should be your companion. You never miss out on the opportunities advertised on google.
- In organizations – you can get information by contacting or visiting the offices of the organizations of interest.
- Advertisements on newspapers and magazines – you must be reader though
- In colleges and universities – chances are normally given to students after completion of their studies in some colleges. You ought to be vigilant.
- At the embassies of various nations- this info is usually available for the public.
- On public notice boards- visit your public offices and you might just land this crucial information.
Read: 10 Best Child Volunteering Opportunities Abroad In 2024
FAQS
Any one above the age of 18 or under 18 with supervision and permission from relevant authorities.
Certificates of good conduct is a common requirement.
All fields are important but there is a focus on Medicine, Science and Education fields.
Yes. As long as they are healthy, skilled and self-reliant.
No. individuals can volunteer on their own. However, affiliation to an organization gives you a better experience and protects you from any risk that comes with volunteering. Organizations cater for basic needs as well.
CONCLUSION
After reading this, seeing how volunteering plays a pivotal role in the community and individual development, would you consider filling some volunteering forms and dropping your applications?
Don’t sit on your skills and time, when you can offer them where they are needed. Need I say more? Learn about the benefits of volunteering abroad!
REFERENCES
- Volunteer | Doctors Without Borders – USA
- Paid Internships with Doctors without Borders (MSF) | Human Rights Careers
- Doctors Without Borders Paid Internships, 2024 Big Internships
- 15 Unexpected Benefits of Volunteering
Recommendation
