If you wish to dive into a new volunteer experience but have doubts about whether volunteering is right for you, pay attention to this blog post. Here we explain the reasons and benefits of volunteering and show the different volunteering possibilities within OCC projects. You might find yourself surprised at just how much you can gain from taking the plunge!
Why volunteer?
- Because volunteering allows you to meet new people and build community.
When you volunteer in a project, you become part of a team with a common goal. This helps you form bonds with strangers that can be life-changing. Moreover, volunteering provides the opportunity of connecting people with shared values. Therefore, through this experience you build relationships that are meaningful.
- Because you gain knowledge and understanding of other ways of life.
By volunteering, you know new parts of your community that you might have never seen before, knowing your society better and raising awareness of the issues that other people deal with. In OCC we work with people from different parts of the world, backgrounds, and cultures. By volunteering in an atmosphere like this, you go out of your comfort zone, break stereotypes, and learn other points of view. As a resutt, you increase your social flexibility and expand your world-view.
- Because you learn new skills that improve your job prospects.
With no doubt, volunteering will offer you skills that can be used throughout your career development. For instance, in OCC you will learn how to use a range of management and communication tools, such as Slack, Airtable, or Trello. You will also learn how nonprofit organisation work. Volunteering is, therefore, especially useful if you want to make a career with social impact.
- Because you do good in the world and help make a difference.
Being aware of this aspect is the most important part of the whole experience. As we said before, volunteering allows you to know what problems exist both in our and other societies, helping in this way people in vulnerable situations and contributing in the proposal of effective and coherent solutions.
You can read our previous articles to learn about the experiences of past volunteers. We unveil the reasons why our volunteers decided to do it!
What volunteering possibilities are there in OCC?
· Volunteer!
You can volunteer with us by supporting our largest projects in Barcelona (Spain), which are our Language Lab and MigraCode. The first one seeks to break language barriers between migrant people and locals by offering classes of Arabic, English, Spanish, and Catalan. We regularly need teachers for these languages who can teach at least one class a week for a period of 3 months.
On the other hand, MigraCode is the first code academy for migrants and refugees, which trains people in digital skills to find a job within the expanding tech sector. Very often, we need new volunteers to support our organising team, support our students, give classes… If you have coding knowledge and/ or experience, there are many volunteering possibilities.
· Become an ESC Volunteer/ Trainee!
The European Solidarity Corps (ESC) is the new European Union initiative which creates opportunities for young people to volunteer or work in projects in their own country or abroad that benefit communities and people around Europe.
OCC offers a wide range of opportunities for people to join our European Solidarity Corps projects, both in Spain and Greece, short and long term.
· Do an internship!
At OCC we work with interns from many universities from all over the world. The minimum stay for an internship at OCC Spain is 6 months and in Greece 3 months. Our interns have worked in the areas of primary education, youth and adult education, translation, communications, or finance and fundraising. There is even the possibility to carry out research if needed!
Having read all this information, what are you waiting for? Read more information about our volunteering opportunities on this page and give it a try!
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