Why volunteering is good for you

Why volunteering is good for you

In recent years, educational institutes have placed a lot of emphasis on the importance of extracurricular activities, focusing mainly on the act of service. Not only does that help your further education or job application stand out amongst all others, but it’s also an entirely meaningful and intrinsically fulfilling process. It entails benefits to your mind as well as the community as a whole, all while helping you develop practical skills that are highly useful in all aspects of your daily life, including home, education, work, and social. 

Let’s take a look at a few of the benefits of why taking time out from your busy schedule to serve at your local NGO might be your best step forward for the current point in time. 

Learn essential life skills

Being a volunteer allows you to learn some critical life skills which you might not be able to pick up in any other aspect of your life. When you volunteer, you teach yourself to be selfless. Since there is no monetary gain or any additional similar benefit at the end of the job, volunteering teaches you how to be kind just for the sake of being helpful.

If you are volunteering for a cause related to the less fortunate, or something which helps give a voice to the silenced, your empathy skills become much higher than someone who has never volunteered. You can bring that sense of empathy into any situation and learn to care about those who do not have the same luxuries as you do.

Volunteering also teaches you one of the most important life skills there is: how to be a team player. When you’re all working for the same cause, you learn how to work with people who you don’t know, people with different backgrounds, different reasons for volunteering, etc. And allow yourself to learn from their experiences.

One of the most common reasons to volunteer, especially for people who live away from home, either in their own country or abroad, is to engage with their community. Volunteering for a good cause allows you to interact with people who live in the same area as you and becomes an easy way to network and make new friends.

Volunteering also has many health benefits as well; being a volunteer brings a sense of purpose to people’s lives, and is known to fight depression. It lowers stress, anxiety, and any anger issues you might have, while simultaneously increasing self-confidence since you have to interact with people from all manners of life.

Although college and university applications look for volunteer experience, it’s not always a good idea to do it just for the sake of having it on your application. Volunteering is a meaningful experience and should be treated as such.