There are certain people that just have that feeling of solidarity, empathy, compassion in them and they relate to other people naturally. Or perhaps life put them in a tough situation and created a lesson to be learned in order to grow, evolve and make something bigger while being on this planet. Either way, having met Klara, a wonderful young person, we have reaffirmed our faith in a better world and in the power of volunteering. When being inclusive, even better.
Klara is not a regular, fast track moving student, she began with secondary school but life confronted her with an obstacle and made her slow down, rethink priorities, find her own pace and her own path.
She started helping others by being a personal assistant, by volunteering with the elderly and those in need. Why is she giving so much of her time and herself?
Klara states that there are many benefits; meeting other people, making new friends, getting valuable experiences, skills and competences for her future life, work and studies (pedagogy). She just loves working with people, that’s why her schooling is related to preschool education.
Our volunteering being inclusive represents an additional added value, since she meets and engages with persons she normally would not have the chance to. By cooperating in such inclusive volunteering people with less opportunities, on her opinion, are given a chance to show what they are able to, they are included, not excluded, borders between “us” and “them” fall and we are all the same, just different. We all have dreams, wishes, talents and we all would like to have fun, and spend quality free time. By working together, we all grow personally, develop the skills we lacked, confront our fears and prejudices and make them go away.
Her advice to all those young people still considering or perhaps fearing to do some volunteering would be to try, follow your (open) heart, and just be open to numerous possibilities there are and find their way, their field of volunteering (may it be sports, art, music…)
It’s never too late to join in; Klara started as a young teenager and tried already many different volunteering activities. And now she found us, for which we are very grateful and positive to enable her new rich experiences in inclusion, solidarity, volunteering, thus making her world and our world a bit better and kinder place.
By helping other people, you also help yourself, we discover again and again. And like Mahatma Gandhi said “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
People like Klara surely relate to his wise words.
