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Rendering Community Service in South Africa
Community service is about helping people or organisations typically based in the area that you live in although volunteer work can be carried out in any neighborhood, in any country, in any part of the world.
How is Community Service Delivered?
Most often community service initiatives are organised through local religious groups, places of worship, primary or secondary schools or non-profit organisations within the community.
You can also exhibit your leadership skills by starting your own community service projects. You do not get paid to perform community service, though sometimes food and small tokens of appreciation are given to volunteers for their assistance.
What are the Benefits of Community Service?
- You get the satisfaction of knowing that the direct impact of your work is helping to improve someone’s life or some things in life while simultaneously making your community a better place to live.
- You can learn many different skills while performing community services such as DIY, construction, painting, customer service, event coordination and leadership. You can also include your community service work on your curriculum vitae.
- You can focus your community service efforts in a field that you may want to work in later on. If you are considering becoming a veterinarian, you could volunteer at an animal shelter or assist at a hospital if you want to be a doctor.
- The experience you gain from community service can help you get a job in the future, and it also gives you the opportunity to see if you really enjoy a particular career or not.
Who Benefits from Community Service?
Community service benefits the destitute, underprivileged children, senior citizens, people with disabilities, old age homes or generally people in need of assistance.
Community service also extends to help animals, animal shelters or to improve communal places such as local parks or places of heritage. Community service can be undertaken by you as an individual or as a group effort.
How Can You Take Part in Community Service?
Depending on your skills and interests you could:
- Collect school supplies for underprivileged school children and donate your time to tutor them after school.
- Visit senior citizens at an old age home and read to them or put on a theatre show for their entertainment.
- Improve the environment by holding a clean-up drive, planting trees or creating a recycling depot.
- Help out the destitute by handing out food at a soup kitchen or collecting used clothes to be donated
Participating in community service is tremendously good for your personal growth as one becomes more responsible, organised, considerate and compassionate, which are all good qualities to have, as well as qualities that both colleges and employers like to see in applicants.
You can meet many fantastic people while performing community service. Community service is often done in groups which make it really easy to make friends with the people you are working with. You may also become friends with the people you are helping and learn from other people experiences, it is a fantastic way to broaden your horizons.
