If you think students spend all their spare time avoiding studying, going out with their mates and having a good time then you'd be right. Well our student bloggers do anyway. While they assure us they don't slack on the study, they've got a lot to answer for when it comes to enjoying themselves while volunteering.

All | Emma | Olivia | Fiona | Sammy | Ashley | Rochelle | Tom | TomG | Harry

« Chinatown.... | Main | Happy New Year:... »

Wednesday Dec 10, 2008

Pre-Christmas Ramble

 

  Just a short update before my term finally ends and I return home to Scarborough – where I can still get some meals cooked for me. Get in.

  Staving off the nihilistic rage, I have been doing a bit of flyering for the winter volunteering opportunities I mentioned in my last blog. It's quite enjoyable really - you watch people squirm to get away from you, some outright ignoring you, and others regarding you suspiciously as they walk by. Of course, most people just take the flyer, and some are even a bit enthusiastic about it.

  I tried to be as friendly as I could be, and not to shove anything in front of people's faces. The entrance into our union at Shef Uni is (probably like most unions) like a crowded maze of people trying to hand you things, usually advertising the latest night of drinking under oddly disconcerting names – Carnage, Brain Damage, Liver Cancer (ok I made that one up) etc.

  As I was flyering for volunteering I thought that a) this was ok, and b) it should be done in a different way to the profit making promotions around us. So I tried to only give flyers to people who had first said that they were interested, although I did stop everyone who past me and asked if they were in fact interested.

  My mate thinks differently. He cited Red Nose Day and Comic Relief as getting money for people who need it by forcing the issue – a TV version of shoving a flyer in your face and saying people need your money (ok, maybe a little more subtle). Otherwise, he said, they simply wouldn't get the funds needed to help.

  So should volunteering, and more especially fundraising, become profit driven? Is it simply the higher cash taken = the better job done. This is definitely Oxfam's way of looking at things.

 Or should we keep in mind the fact that a lot of the problems we want to help are possibly linked to everyone's exuberance for chasing money (homelessness, poverty, even mental health issues)?   

--

On a lighter and better note, David Blunkett recently announced that he's keen to see people from 16-25 years old do a period of 'intensive' volunteering for at least 6 months, to bind us all together (obviously). My friend spotted this gem in the article:

When asked whether the scheme should become a form of compulsory national service Mr Blunkett replied: "It's been reinforced to me in the last year that you can't have volunteering unless it's voluntary."

Gold Star for David.

Posted by Harry ( 12:27 AM )
Link to this post Comments[0]