After I completed my training in Journalism and Photography, after some wanderings as a childminder and employee in a hardware store, I ended up at the editorial office of a regional newspaper. The nice thing about working at a regional newspaper is that you can spend a lot of time and attention on tidbits that seem worthless at a national level, but have quite a meaning at a regional level. Interviews with the volunteers of the local youth club, with people who have received a royal decoration or people with crazy hobbies or collections, for example. I worked full-time at the newspaper for almost three years, and after a break for a while, I now work for a regional newspaper again, but on a freelance basis.
I interview a lot of volunteers. Volunteers who have been organizing the evening four-day event for many years, who have organized benefit concerts to collect money for cancer research, volunteers who have been training the F's on the football field every Wednesday afternoon, volunteers who have been ready for thirty years at the schools, running the local swimming pool or having coffee with the elderly alone. Name a type of volunteer, and chances are I've interviewed them before.
Often these helpers have one thing in common:they are modest about their role as volunteers. Maybe it depends on the region where I work; in Northeast Friesland people are not so fond of patting themselves on the back. However, I also think it's the nature of the beast. Volunteers do voluntary work because they enjoy doing it, but they also do it mainly for the other person. For the F's who beam when they score, the older person who puts a smile on her face when you come in for a cup of coffee, for the person who receives the check with a large amount for cancer; that's what they do it for!
I sometimes think about what would happen if they all said at the same time:it's been great, I'm done with it. Chaos. That would arise. In politically correct language, it is sometimes said that the volunteer is 'the cornerstone of society'. Old fashioned language if you ask me, but it is true. Without those tens of thousands of volunteers, the Netherlands would be nowhere.
Pat on the back
As far as I'm concerned, volunteers should be patted on the shoulder more often. They will undoubtedly not agree with me, because volunteers do not do their work for pats on the back. But they deserve them as far as I'm concerned. We simply cannot do without them.
Thank you!
Do you volunteer? I really like to know what the readers of Mamsatwork.nl do for society! On behalf of the entire Mamsatwork.nl team, I also give you a digital pat on the back:Thank you for everything you do for others! More information about volunteering can be found here.
