Volunteering is a great way to help others and gain valuable experience at the same time. Employees gain opportunities for personal growth and improve their relationship, interpersonal, and social skills.
Benefits of Volunteering
Volunteering – http://volunteer.ca/ helps people connect to others and is a good opportunity to make contacts and friends. Shared activities strengthen relationships, broaden your circle and support network, and expose you to plenty of fulfilling, satisfying, and fun activities. There are more benefits to having a volunteer job, one being that helping others provides a sense of purpose and direction. It also helps boost self-esteem and self-confidence and improves life satisfaction. What is more, this is a good way to keep yourself physically healthy and fight depression and anxiety, whatever your situation is. Social isolation is one of the main risk factors for mental disorders and depression. Working with animals, for example, helps fight anxiety and stress and improves mood. Certain projects and volunteering jobs can help you stay healthy, including physical activities involved in green and environmental projects.
Volunteering and Financial Discipline
Volunteering is also a good way to learn how to be more responsible and stay away from bad financial habits such as impulse buying, overspending, splurging, and borrowing on credit cards. Maxed out credit cards and late and missed payments result in poor credit and limit the pool of available borrowing solutions because you are considered a risky borrower. The same goes for bad credit cards that go with very high charges and rates and make it very expensive to borrow and repay. When interest charges accumulate, you may find yourself in a situation that makes it more and more difficult to keep up with payments. Stay away from payday lenders that charge high interest rates over a short period unless you have urgent problems to solve. This is a last resort if you have to pay medical bills, car loans or utilities and have exhausted all other options.
Sometimes it’s tough to find a paid job, especially if you are young and have no job experience, but this shouldn’t discourage you. You can always apply for a volunteer job in order to gain some experience, and meanwhile you can pay your bills with your credit card. Once you have a few months of volunteer experience your job search should become much easier and once you start a paid job you can deal with your credit card debt.
There are other benefits to volunteering, apart from better self-discipline and money management skills. This is one way to gain job skills and advance your career. Volunteers benefit from the fact that they can learn valuable skills such as organization, task and time management, problem solving, communication, teamwork, and others. Many organizations and institutions also offer extensive training to build on your existing skills. Volunteers learn new skills and competencies that benefit local communities. Another benefit is that you are offered the chance to try new career paths without the long-term commitment that full-time work requires. Some volunteer jobs also expose young persons to internships and professional associations and organizations that help advance their career.