Volunteering and my experience volunteering abroad

Volunteering is a great thing to do and always looks especially impressive on your  CV! 

If you just want a weekend volunteering scheme, every charity shop will give the opportunity for ANYONE to volunteer their time.

This is fab because it not only shows you're a nice person but because you'll be working with intake, outtake, customers and money at the cashier you'll be checking off a lot of boxes when applying for a job so when you go for that interview you can come out doing this:

I volunteered in an Oxfam and at the start it's not great because you're usually working at the back and sorting through everything that gets sent in (trust me some people give away some weird stuff - this one time I found a used toothbrush!-) but once they realise you're capable of more you get to move to the front of the shop and work behind the till. One of the greatest things about working in a charity shop is the conversation you get from the older ladies, especially the ones who like to gossip. If this is something that interests you, head down to your local charity shop (for us ROHO people there is PLENTY to choose from) and volunteer yourself.

Another way to volunteer is rubbish picking in your community and a lot of universities offer this as a volunteer scheme.

this photo is of a group of Northern Londoners joining together for the Interfaith Litter-Picking Social Action Project. If you want to find out anymore about it, here's the link: http://communities.um-uk.org/2009/12/03/1912/

It's not the most elegant of jobs and probably won't get you much experience for your future job but if you do it with friends it can be a lot of fun. If you pick up the rubbish in your local town it also allows you to become more well known among everyone and this will help if you want connections into a local business (believe me ANY kind of connection is better than no connection)

Many schools also offer volunteer placements allowing students to volunteer themselves in working situations, such as nursery teaching, nursing, coaching and if your school or university or local centre offers this GET INVOLVED. I can not emphasise how good it is and how worthwhile it is.

I'm someone who is always busy so for me it's hard to volunteer myself during the week so I decided to volunteer abroad during the summer. It was by far the best experience of my entire life so far and would recommend anyone thinking about it or considering it to stop thinking and book it! I knew I wanted to volunteer as an English teacher. It took me a very long time to scroll through all the different links that came up but by doing this I knew that the company I went with I was completely satisfied with.

I volunteered with a company called SL Volunteers

They are a British based company that allows students and graduates to volunteer in Sri Lanka for five weeks at the minimum in the summer. There are two programmes: the psychology programme and the teaching programme. I signed up for the teaching programme and once I had paid, applied for my visa, had my injections and made sure I had all the correct clothing I was ready to go. I was there for 5 weeks and it was incredible. I can't tell you what a typical day was because each day was different but I varied in teaching English to adults that were very advanced and simply helping them with their pronunciation for interviews and teaching complete beginners that were new to phrases like "my name is". The amount of students in each class also varied but you were never alone in a classroom so if there were too many students which sometimes happened we would split the class into two groups. We stayed with a local Sri Lankan family and there was about 5-7 people staying with each family. It sounds quite intimidating but the family soon become your family and you begin to love them and their cooking. Here's a photo of my Sri Lankan family and I:

I am someone who used to hate spicy food and so was scared of eating the local curries made by the family but they were awesome and now I'm a proper spice lover! Another great thing about the trip was that the company gave you the weekend off which meant that you were allowed to travel round the different areas of Sri Lanka each weekend and many people took an extra week after completing the volunteering because there is so much to see in the country. I got to see and do so much over the summer and have made some life-long friends so like I said before if you're even considering it, DO IT!  Here's a link to the SL Volunteers Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/slvolunteersorganisation?fref=ts
and their website:  http://www.slvolunteers.com/

Here are some photos from my trip:

On top of elephant rock

Sigiriya rock

Galle, Sri Lanka

Last meal in the house

Dressed in traditional saree for a Sri Lankan party

Jet-skiing in Una Watuna, Sri Lanka

THE GANG!

If people are interested I'll post a separate blog with all the essential information a person needs when volunteering abroad and staying with a foreign family :) let me know if you'd like one :)

That's all for now,
Emma
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