It occurred to me that one of the reasons that people don’t get involved in community service is because they simply don’t know how. It’s not a silly problem, it’s quite easy to think that getting involved is simply too complicated, too time-consuming, or you just don’t know what you can offer that would help. It is somewhat like considering what job you would be suitable for: you look at an auditing firm and think “I don’t know anything about accounting, therefore I can’t be of use to them”.
We’re liable to think ‘charity’ is synonymous with fundraising and manual labour but there are so many other ways to get involved, some of which I will highlight below. Throw a party. Throw a Mad Hatter themed tea party with two of your friends, bake lots of goodies and invite a heap of other friends. Get them to donate a few hundred rupees for coming to the party so that you can collect the donations and give it to a charity.
People throw parties for free all the time and of course it is in our hospitable Sri Lankan nature to do so but it is so easy to transform this type of festive event into an easy do-it-yourself fundraiser! Brag about yourself. Email an organisation that asks for volunteers with a list of your talents that you can use to help them. For those of you with artistic skills and/or creative minds, creativity is the main arsenal we use for publicity – your ideas are always helpful to inspire poster campaigns, advertisement and prospective fundraisers.
Talk about it. When you see a group that’s doing something interesting or worthwhile that strikes you, tell the people around you about it. You could talk about it to a larger audience on social networks like Facebook, your personal blog or Twitter. You can offer the organisation to advertise their project
in your school, university or local community, even if it’s just a matter of sticking up a poster of theirs on a noticeboard or making a public announcement during assembly time or during a meeting for a group you’re involved in.
Even if it’s just a social gathering, start talking about it as a point of interest – you never know who amongst your acquaintances would be interested in getting involved. In fact, if you yourself cannot allow time or money to the group then maybe there are people you know who can and the only way they can know is if people like you talk to them about it.
There are plenty of easy ways to get involved. Don’t rule your own involvement out because you think it’s too complicated. If you would like to be a part of the upcoming fund raising events organised by STITCH please write to us at ivolunteer@stitchmovement.com or visit our website, www.stitchmovement.com
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