Helping out is COOL?

I’ve had a little colorful children’s book published by an organization called Volunteer Canada for some time now. Its titled: “helping out is cool” just ran that through a search and to my surprise it indeed found the exact link! Usually stuff like this just passes by without anyone noticing it (because most of the time it’s a stunt that had to be done and not a genuine effort) The Volunteer Canada logo is actually a quite popular one to see at random places.

Click here to download the improved flash version of the book I had. It’s a good read for anyone.

It's a little a little hard to believe that : The Canadian voluntary and nonprofit sector is made up of more than 161,000 organizations, 6.5 million volunteers and 2 million paid staff.

THAT'S ABOUT 1/5 CANADIANS!!!!

Volunteering is a good way to avoid wasting time and helps one learn valuable skills like teamwork, time management, people skills etc. makes you responsible and more mature all in one go. This is what it is supposed to happen, not sure if it actually plays out this well in real life.

Schools have tried to promote this through the CAPP program here in BC. But getting the 30 hours of ‘work experience’ on an actual job is one huge fraud:

I really don’t think volunteering in the traditional sense is the way to go because of some bad experiences I’ve had over the years. And as with anything some still don’t end up learning no matter how good the education.

People usually take you for granted, their eyes light up when they hear ‘volunteers’ are offering their help.

This is pretty much true across the board; Punajbis aren’t the only ones waiting to exploit poor defenseless teens as many think. Our Grade 10 CAPP class did a one day job shadow program where each student followed a person of choice working on site and later submit a report based on what they observed.

The majority were forced into actually helping out with things even though it wasn’t a hands on work experience assignment which was made clear in a signed contract. After that discussion most of the class was clearly disgusted and didn’t want anything to do the mandatory 30 hours of work experience requited to complete the course.

I’m sure there are good volunteer groups out there that live up to what’s expected. But many think some of the better known ones out there are useless.

The transition into the workforce is really tough these days. I don’t think anyone’s addressed this issue well enough yet. Could this be another reason why so many are turning to other illegal methods to earn a living? It’s more academically demanding to find the same jobs that were easy to find a few years ago. And this route becoming harder and harder doesn’t help the situation at all.

Sure there will always be volunteers easily indoctrinated into thinking how good this noble deed is. This should be kept up too I think but to really make this into a win-win situation people on the receiving end of the volunteering equation should take the initiative to actually make it a fairer experience.

I don’t think there’s a bigger paap then thugging little kids/others with a genuine want to do free service.