At a time when human considerations have become rare, the time has come to lend a helping hand to the seniors, especially to women, who toiled hard for upbringing the family and thereby failed to take care of failing health and suffer from doing their routine work and suffer even for walking for their regular needs.
Have you ever thought of doing something different? Like, helping out at a children’s home or planting trees or cleaning up your neighbourhood? Try it and in the long run you might even like it. There are so many opportunities available with organisations, and if not, you can even take the initiative to create opportunities, as volunteering not just helps you give back to society, but also helps you build confidence, versatility, offers you a wider perspective of the world around you and empowers you. To add to your educational qualification it will look good on your profile as well.
We are a very busy lot, with school work, homework, extracurricular classes, TV, video games and birthday parties, there are so many things that we pack in a day. What if we could cut down on, say TV time, and dedicate some time to the world we live in? It need not always be about saving the world, but also about bringing a smile on someone’s face or helping make someone’s life better, even if it is an animal. Volunteering is not necessarily something that just adults engage in; even you, as school children, can volunteer in your own capacity and capability — how much time you can spare, your interest, how much you can venture out and so on.
Call neighbourhood NGOs or animal shelters and find out how you can help. They may need help in different areas like collecting funds, publicity, awareness creation, day-to-day operations or event organisation. Find your neighbourhood or school playground in need of cleaning? Why not gather your friends and help clean up with permission, and under the supervision of adults. You could sit at home make calls, post requests online or simple go door to door to raise money for a cause or a particular NGO. If not money, you could also help organise a clothes/ toy/ books drive for a children’s home or an old age home of your choice. Don’t stop with just collecting the material and delivering them, spend time with the children or the aged at the home. Your time and care are the most precious things you can give away.
Volunteer your skills by teaching underprivileged children at homes or a community centre. You could teach them computer skills, English, basic Mathematics and science or events arts and crafts — just about anything that will engage them and you productively. And finally, you can even volunteer your time online to do a bit of social awareness. Put up Facebook updates and tweets on Twitter to advocate a cause that is closest to your heart – links, tags, pictures, videos or your own opinion on an social issue will help at least a few sit up and take notice.
Some take the opportunity to act as a scribe for a visually challenged student or an ably handicapped person. From the childhood we learnt the art of helping each other. We do help within our family and later on extend that to as a social service. We get maximum experience when we keep in touch with different types of human soles. When we grow older, we help out seniors, who need help during their old age. After all our life is to help out and make ourselves busy so that when we are in trouble someone will lend you a helping hand. Helping each other is a way of life.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
