Students have participated in a ‘soup kitchen’ model for volunteering for eons. Traditionally the format is to take a group of students (often a class, or a small representative group of a school who have chosen to participate) and ask them to volunteer their time provide a product or service with the support of an organisation that cares about doing some good.

Now days, there are many ways that students during school can participate in volunteering, all it takes is for someone to take the time to link the volunteer activity with the school curriculum or consider how it links to developing general capabilities. Other common reasons why students volunteer is to solve a local problem affecting the community, the students or the school, to foster a strong sense of the schools values, or for other opportunities such as the Duke of Ed Award.

Young South Australians have diverse interests, many of them are screaming out for more opportunities to get involved in Sports and Recreation, within the Arts, and around topics related to emerging Digital Technologies. A lot of young people get into volunteering without meaning to. For example – they might turn up to a beach event and join in to clean up rubbish before they start, repeating when friends and fun can be had. Others might start to play netball and end up supporting the club even when they aren’t playing, or maybe they attend a cadets as a participant and eventually sign up to mentor newer cadets at a later date to develop leadership skills.

Some people start volunteering with their parents, guardians, siblings or peers (many from quite a young age!). This often goes unrecognised because they are labelled as participants, whilst the older supervising individual is officially signed up as a volunteer. We are working diligently to help get more younger volunteers recognised for bringing smiles to the elderly, bringing their energy to events and for participating in organised acts of kindness. This category can be seen described within the census as informal forms of volunteering, but sadly it doesn’t capture the efforts of those under 15 years of age and it could be argued that it doesn’t capture the full diversity and creativity of organised acts of kindness in Australia.

Volunteer work provides a range of opportunities for job seekers to incubate their confidence, develop real-world experience, network with people who are likely to become work references, and practice skillsets that are easily transferred to the workplace. 

Common volunteer positions that job-seekers leverage to help them obtain gainful employment include roles in Administration, Retail, Hospitality, Gardening, Customer Services etc.

We can hardly expect things to stay the same when our world continues to evolve and adapt, Southern Volunteering recognises that there will be new ways that people volunteer. Some we cannot predict, however some of them are somewhat predictable – like those that may arise via social media. 

A good example of this can be seen in Facebook’s Community Help section – this serves to better connect people and organisations, but it does come with risks. Make sure you look at each platforms safety guidelines and take common sense precautions when interacting with people online.