5 Reasons to Volunteer this Student Volunteering Week

It’s Student Volunteering Week!

Volunteering provides a diverse set of opportunities and avenues for both personal and professional growth. By dedicating time and skills to important causes, volunteering has the potential to shape perspectives and foster an important sense of purpose. It further offers a space to cultivate empathy and understanding of the communities around us.

Current volunteering roles

For Student Volunteering Week we spoke to Chiara, a recent addition to the Fight For Sight team, about her unique perspective to the world of volunteering as a student and what the five most important things she learnt were:

1. Volunteering helps you develop new skills

Volunteering gives you the opportunity to develop skills you wouldn’t usually have exposure to, such as project management and client/stakeholder communication.

You can volunteer almost anywhere which means you can learn a plethora of skills volunteering and its especially useful if you don’t know what you want to learn but just want to build up your repertoire of skills!

2. Volunteering develops your time management skills

Fitting in volunteering around paid work, education and life is a great way to learn to manage your time effectively.

3. Volunteering grows your fundamental admin skills

Skills such as writing formal emails, using software such as Teams and Zoom and responding to queries in a timely manner, aren’t necessarily taught anywhere but in the workplace. However certain volunteering opportunities can give you the chance to learn and hone these skills in a safe environment that you can grow in.

4. Volunteering provides the opportunity to enhance your emotional intelligence

Depending on where you work you can really build upon and expand your emotional intelligence by interacting with people with various needs that might require nuance in how they are supported, such as those experiencing mental health problems, those who need physical support and more. Doing this can make you feel part of your community and adds another layer of empathy and understanding.

5. You can learn how to be more responsible

Learning how to be responsible for important tasks such as money handling and closing up a shop or office are important transferable skills for future jobs!

Find out more about volunteering