Volunteering Opportunities
When I arrived on campus, I was initially caught in the initial hustle and bustle of fresher’s. After settling in, I found about the existence of Warwick Volunteering.
They are a fantastic bunch of people as one of their subsidiaries’ name RAG (Raising and Giving) may suggest so. Their main purpose is to manage some excellent volunteering projects. It is also one of those SU societies that is free to join. I joined the society early in my first year. It is one of the largest societies with almost every other person I know at Warwick being a part of it. They inform the members about their projects through the weekly newsletter emails. I took part in one of Warwick RAG’s project named as ‘Reaching for the Stars’ that involved teaching children some singing & dancing at a nearby community care center. We had to go once a week to the center in the evening. This was an amazing experience as I love working with children. And who wouldn’t enjoy teaching some young kids how to sing or dance? I only got the opportunity to participate in one project of RAG due to my commitments to other co-curricular activities. I couldn’t complete this project fully either. Another project involved going to the woods on campus every week and do some tree plantation with all protective gear like wellies and dirt resistant clothes on. This one always appealed me but unfortunately I couldn’t ever overcome my Saturday morning laziness to actually pursue it.
Apart from Warwick Volunteers, there are a few other societies that may run some volunteering projects in collaboration with them. I got lucky as our ‘Cricket Club’ at Warwick announced to run weekly coaching sessions at a nearby school in Term 2. Two of the cricket club members had to go to a school in Leamington every Wednesday to run an after-school cricket coaching session. I got a chance to volunteer for two sessions. I absolutely loved the first session. Where in this world will you be logging some community hours by running around the field to play cricket with some lovely young children? The second session around wasn’t as enjoyable though. This is because the trustworthy English weather decided to step in. It was absolutely pouring as I reached the school and the session was called off.
English weather is a story for another day though. I don’t believe this one blog has the ability to sustain this depth. Hence, I will dedicate my next blog to this philosophy.
Coming back to Volunteering, I think everyone should get involved in this. Considering the range of projects they have in Warwick, everyone is bound to find something that captures their interest.
