Youth and The Value of Volunteerism

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“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead, American Cultural Anthropologist.

I grew up in a family of humanitarian workers and volunteers. My Dad, who is a world explorer and a ship captain by profession, did volunteer projects in various countries around the world, my Mom in her younger years did charity work building churches in the Philippines, while my older brother participates in medical missions as a nurse helping communities that needs immediate medical attention.

Volunteerism runs in my blood. As a young kid around the age of eight, I started to participate in local Animal shelters’ rescue missions saving abused, neglected, and maltreated cats and dogs which often suffer from malnutrition. Until now, I continue giving a considerable amount of time volunteering as an Animal Rescuer to a point where I adopted six cats and a dog, all came from rescue missions. Since the value of stewardship and humanitarian work was imparted to us at a young age, it was never difficult for my brother and I to engage ourselves in volunteering for various causes. I was able to continue with my advocacies in college when I studied in Manila, Philippines. I continued to engage myself in humanitarian works such as volunteer teaching, being a youth mentor for a non-profit organization, and a fundraising advocate for UNICEF Philippines, while attending my freshman year in the University. Throughout that experience, it was able to open my eyes to the reality of life.

There is a certain amount of help everyone needs, and we have a responsibility to help others. I consider it a privilege to understand that idea at a young age since not everyone of us understands the accountability we have as a person to volunteer and the reward that comes from it. For that same reason, I realized that helping out others, specifically the youth and the children will have a substantial amount of impact on the world we live in. It will not just have an effect on those youth or kids we help through volunteer, humanitarian or charity works, but by having the heart to improve the living conditions of the younger generation, as a result, we also help ourselves since the future leaders of this world will come from the youth. Think of it this way, by making the lives better for the youth and the children, we are all making our world a better place for everyone. 

Through my experience working with myriad charities, humanitarian, and non-profit organizations, I’ve learned that there is some sort of partnership that we are doing with families as we help out the youth. In that way, we are preserving the value of the family, as well as applying solidarity by building friendly relationships with others, especially with those youth that we are helping with our volunteer work. 

Our society should value the importance of our family in nation-building, as the primary cell of the past and present civilization. By helping out the youth we can provide a person with a fundamental experience of what it means to be truly human. As volunteers, we partner with families through the parents’ unconditional love and selfless support that they can convey to their children. The experience of understanding our human dignity, human rights, and our truth as a person through the gift of self can also be encountered through other forms of human relationships. That is where the importance of volunteerism enters. How we can help the youth, how we can assist other people, how we can be of service in the most humbling way, and having the awareness of reciprocal personal donation prepares the ground for solidarity. 

Mentorship, stewardship, and service personhood comes a long way. As a result of these forms of volunteerism, humanitarian, and charity works, we are building a future centered on family life and assuring a bright future for every member of the community by taking care of the future generation, where the future leaders of this world will come from. 

By investing in the youth’s future, we are investing in our future.


Published: January 11, 2022

This blog was written by Jimmy Alcobilla, a WYA Asia Pacific Intern Alumnus. Want to be part of the WYA Asia Pacific Intern Family? Visit bit.ly/aponlineinternship today!

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