Volunteer, developing yourself and gaining valuable experience
07.06.2013
I have always believed that I am a lucky person. I have got a wonderful family, I am healthy and I had the opportunity to gain a sound education and to work in the sector I love the most, the art world.
I think that nowadays, many people confuse the word lucky with the word easy. What I have learned in life is that things never come easily and you must work extremely hard to make your dreams a reality. You must be passionate and of course follow your heart, always remembering not to be greedy. As you are ready to take, you must be ready to give back.
In this climate of austerity, with cuts in education and art institutions alike, I feel more than ever the need to contribute to a nonprofit institution. I am not sure where I would be today if I had never been given the opportunity to visit a free exhibition or a museum during my youth. When I go to a museum I feel that there are people working for me, making sure I will experience a certain show, a performance or a certain type of art. I feel part of a community and that makes me feel proud. With that at the forefront of my mind, a few months ago, I decided to volunteer at The Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, where I am currently helping the museum team deal with visitors and organise activities for children.
At The Museum of Childhood I have met so many people with a whole host of different stories. There I can share the same passion for the arts with likeminded people, who want to feel part of something bigger than them, helping the community to engage with our exhibitions. The volunteers are an incredibly diverse group; they are of different ages and have different reasons to volunteer and that is what makes the whole experience even more interesting.
When you are volunteering you are not only helping a museum to achieve its goal, you are developing yourself and gaining valuable experience. Ultimately you can develop skills that can help build a career.
Volunteering has helped me on several levels; first of all it has improved my diplomacy. In a place like a museum you get come into contact with various people, whom profess different beliefs, do different jobs and come from different educational backgrounds. The idea is to understand how to effectively engage with all of them by altering your vocabulary, body language and perhaps your tone of voice. It is an experience that definitely improves your sensitivity, something that you can use to deliver excellent customer service in your daily job. Remember that whatever your job you always need to be polite. (Read here my post: Diplomacy is your passport to a happy job)
It helped me to reconsider my priorities and dedicate more time to things that really matter to me. Due to the great progress of technology and the fast pace of our working environments, we always feel we are in a hurry and must finish everything in the quickest time possible. This can mean that we forget the reason we did it in the first place; in the long run it affects our relationships and eventually makes us feel stressed and unhappy. When I volunteer I am there 100%, there is no phone for me, no email to get back to, and no social networks to check out. When I leave the museum I feel calm and full of lovely stories to tell to my friends.
It gives me great energy to see so many passionate people dedicating their time to someone else for no monetary return. This might sound a bit naïve but I truly believe that if each of us can do even a small thing to help our society to improve, the world will be a better place, but most importantly we will all feel much better.
Volunteering is a great way to recharge our batteries, push our boundaries and have fun. There is always something new to learn and experience, I doubt you will ever get bored. I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone!
The Guardian, Voluntary Sector Network blog
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