Volunteering is not just about someone doing something that is nice to others. It is something more, something way more. Below are some of the impacts of volunteering and why it actually matters for volunteers to exist and how you can volunteer.
1. Volunteers get things done
Volunteering have an immense impact to the community in many aspects that may seem trivial in our everyday life but nevertheless things that are important and essential.
- Volunteers educate children and tutor them into educated individuals.
- Volunteers visit and take care of the sick, poor, and needy.
- Volunteers help to build schools and community houses.
- Volunteers help clean up the street and rid them of rubbish.
- Volunteers contribute their efforts in driving awareness of climate change.
- Volunteers assist in building up successful NGOs.
- Volunteers stand on the frontier of search and rescue during a disaster.
So on and so forth, you get the general idea.
www.aiesec.in
2. Volunteerism is not a job, it is a purpose
Many individuals volunteer for one simple reason, “Purpose”. Volunteers don’t just spend time doing things that are nice to people, they volunteer for the greater good. And it is precisely this “greater good” that is capable of influencing and impacting more and more lives around the volunteers, which explains the reason why organizations such as the United Nations Volunteers, AIESEC etc. exist.
www.aiesec.org
3. Volunteerism connects the world together
When Nepal was hit by one of the world’s worst earthquake in human recorded history, thousands of volunteers flooded in to assist in search and rescue effort. Hundreds of organizations played their own part in collecting resources to donate and relieving the victims. Tens of countries came together to raise funds and send in search parties to help Nepal.
Even though the entire incident started with a negative cause, but throughout the process, it is volunteerism (positive effect) that made an impact to the victims.
www.adaderana.lk
4. Volunteers contribute to economy
Let us take a look at the statistics.
According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, 61.8 million individuals in the United States contributed 8 billion hours of volunteerism in 2008 alone.
- With 61,800,000 individuals, we can fill up the entire Kuala Lumpur around 39 times. (population of Kuala Lumpur in 2010 is 1.589 million).
- With 8,000,000 hours, we can watch the entire Harry Potter movie series (8 movies in total) for 400,000 times.
This staggering amount of individual and time contributed to around $162 billion US Dollar, which is roughly the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Malaysia in 2006! And it’s only volunteerism.
blog.frontiergap.com
So there you have it! Our list of reasons why volunteerism matters. Interested in finding out how you can be a part of this giant community in contributing to the world? Click the button below.
[button link=”aiesec.my/global-citizen/” type=”icon” icon=”search” newwindow=”yes”] Find out how you can volunteer abroad![/button]
