Volunteering Essay Example for Free Use

What is volunteering?

Volunteering can be described as an act that is conducted through self-will and is driven by personal impetus. An individual does not expect any pay in return to service delivered but rather is driven by the intrinsic need to assist in the society of offer guidance if need be. It may be simple as assisting children or the elderly to cross the road or taking part in community programs such as cleaning the neighborhood and providing guidance and counseling services to the teenagers on issues such as premarital sex and drugs (Hustinx et.al, 2010). From an analytical perspective, there are various contributions that volunteering makes to the community.

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Volunteering contributes greatly by ensuring that the surroundings are safe. The surroundings, in this case, include parks, streets, rivers, a neighborhood in addition to green spaces. It also ensures that the community receives clean water for drinking (Miranda, 2011). Volunteering also ensures that basic services are provided. They include; taking part in search and rescue activities for missing people, firefighting, providing basic needs such as food and clothes to the homeless and the elderly, participating in neighborhood watches just in case of security reasons, taking guard on phone lines used in centers that deal with issues regarding sexual abuse and domestic violence (Miranda, 2011).

Volunteering provides the community with mentors, coaches, counselors, trainers who are able to impact the life of most young people. Most communities have centers that have volunteers who provide their time to those looking for guidance, assistance, and support. The assistance may be simply in terms of assisting with a mathematics or science homework, training in various sports in addition to personal problems (Miranda, 2011). The volunteers avail themselves and try their level best to offer guidance in the best way that they can. Volunteering allows the education of the public when it comes to issues such as public health, and potential disasters. A good example is nurses and doctors who provide their medical knowledge and time to the free medical centers and places attacked with either natural or civil disasters. Volunteering also contributes to the health of individuals whereby individuals willingly donate their blood and body organs such as kidneys and heart for the survival of others (Miranda, 2011).

Volunteering also contributes to the repair and building of homes in the community in addition to restructuring schools, digging boreholes and repairing of various infrastructures. It also assists in recreational activities by which volunteers assist in organizing fairs, circus and providing touring services to the visitors (Rochester et.al, 2016). From a general perspective, volunteering plays a significant role in putting the society in order. It allows the meeting up of basic needs, provision of security and ensuring that communities are well informed when it comes to basic issues such as health and civil responsibility. The volunteers can be perceived as community partners who contribute greatly to the welfare of the society (Rochester et.al, 2016).

As stated earlier, there are various contributions that volunteering makes to the community. It is important to note that volunteers are significant members of the society from a global perspective. They take part in formal and informal methods of volunteering for the purpose of meeting the needs of others. Volunteering is at times approached as an empathetic act whereby people assist others due to similar experiences or rather comprehending what others are experiencing.

References

Hustinx, L., Cnaan, R. A., & Handy, F. (2010). Navigating theories of volunteering: A hybrid map for a complex phenomenon. Journal for the theory of social behavior, 40(4), 410-434.

Miranda, V. (2011). Cooking, caring and volunteering: Unpaid work around the world. New York: Cengage Learning.

Rochester, C., Paine, A. E., Howlett, S., Zimmeck, M., & Paine, A. E. (2016). Volunteering and Society in the 21st Century. London: Springer.