What I learned from the first volunteer seminar

BY AGATSU KIMURA

From August 27th to 30th, I paid 7,000 yen to participate in the first volunteer seminar sponsored by the Hokkaido Board of Education. The 53 participants came from not only Hokkaido (Hokkaido Teachers College, Kushiro Public University and so on) but also Sendai (Tohoku Welfare College) and most of them had never done volunteer activities before. We practiced volunteer activities, had a presentation about the activities and what we thought about them, produced recreation games for the disabled, studied the relationship between volunteer activities and lifelong education, and discussed what we did. I lived a full schedule for 4 days.
We went to Seishoen, a special home for the aged in Fukagawa, as a practice volunteer activity on the second day. We chatted with the elderly people for an hour, and played some games for recreation in the afternoon. Some seemed to enjoy the games and told us to come again, but others had difficulty expressing their feelings. Some of the elderly were disabled, could not have a conversation because of senility, refused to be photographed, or could not have a meal by themselves. All had their own unique personalities. They have their own names, favorite likes and dislikes and life circumstances. I could not understand them well. The care-takers think it is impossible for volunteers to take the time to do such things deeply.
We need to think what volunteerism is and why we do it. What defines it and what is its attractiveness to some students?
Some of the volunteers said, ﾒWe enjoyed it, too,ﾓ and, ﾒThey took care of us. Did I do volunteer activities?ﾓ I want to say, ﾒYes, you did!ﾓ We can change the idea ﾒvolunteerismﾓ (the act of helping people with little or no reimbursement) into just, ﾒsharing the time together.ﾓ In this ideal, people are doing things for friends in need. In other words, they are equal. Though you might not understand this before you do volunteer activities, this is how people doing that usually feel. If you do volunteer activities hoping for thanks, that is no longer volunteerism.
What you feel and understand after you do volunteer activities are the definition and attractiveness of it. It might be satisfying to work for a community or group, to realize your growth, to satisfy your interest or to share the time together, which we felt. You may feel this by volunteering only once or by volunteering many times. Therefore, I hope you participate in volunteer activities after learning the following 5 points. (1) Take responsibility for your activities. (2) Respect people as individuals. (3) Be businesslike about doing volunteer activities because you cannot do everything you want to. (4) Judge your activities without falling into self-satisfaction. (5) Go there again. It is OK if you have ulterior motives like wanting to make more friends, getting credit, or doing volunteer activities just to impress a company when job-hunting, and so on. I hope you will consider doing volunteer activities or participating in the second volunteer seminar. You will find your own definition and attractiveness of volunteerism.