What is Volunteering and What it isn’t

Volunteering is an amazing thing to do. Whether that is abroad or at home. Giving up your own time to contribute to a project can be really valuable for the people and groups that you volunteer for. Volunteering comes in all shapes and sizes but the one thing you have in common is that you are giving up your time in exchange for learning and building new skills. If we think of these people (look at a pic of the people) Fred works at his local charity shop, Myfawnwy is picking apples in Denmark, Jatinder is working an allotment. They’re all volunteers. Each are helpful and each can help you build new skills. Meet new people. And understand yourself better.

This lesson should take around 30 minutes to complete and should help you understand the realities of volunteering. It covers defining real volunteering, the two-way exchange, and managing expectations.

We will explore the reasons that make people want to volunteer and why volunteering can, when done right, can be helpful to communities across the world. We will also cover some of the feelings you may go through when you volunteer and learn about culture.

After completing this course you should feel confident that in telling this difference between volunteering and what is tourism or leisure. You should start to understand what makes you want to volunteer and why you’ll be helpful to the community in which your placement will happen. Finally you’ll be able to recognise the challenges that can happen when you are placed in a new culture or environment.

Before you start lets hear from you! Access the padlet below and let us know about your volunteering placement, write as much or as little as you want, you could talk about what you’ll be doing, how you feel about it, if anything makes you nervous or excited –