Transcriber: Ayberk Toygar Temizci Reviewer: Hani Eldalees
I’m sure all students can distinctly remember times in their first year,
where it all just felt like it was getting a bit too much. In my first year.
Yeah, I often find myself feeling like this tiny fish in
an ocean full of people that were more interesting,
smarter and more motivated than I was.
As academic work started to pile on,
I almost felt selfish that I was at a university as I just had no idea what
I wanted to do. And I just remember these nights of lying alone thinking,
oh my goodness, what am I doing here? What is my purpose here?
I started volunteering, sort of by accident.
I had ignored all of the advice given to me by older years and had signed up
for every single club at the freshies fair.
However, this poor decision led to me getting a rather bizarre email out of
the blue in second semester, saying,
I've been signed up to meet with a group of people I've never met before
and go volunteer at a local home for adults with complex needs.
Oh, and this was in two hours, but completely contrary to my personality,
I decided to go. Ever since that day,
I have not questioned my purpose being here by simply signing up for an hour.
Once a week, I have seen myself make more of a difference than
I could have ever imagined.
I've been visiting the same woman since that very first day.
I didn’t know anything about her going in
And still haven’t really been told much about her.
I do know that she's in her 50s and she has Down syndrome as well
as other health complications. She loves (incomprehensible).
She loves Take That, she loves cake and she always has a purple manicure.
We first bonded over our shared love of adult coloring,
and we always spend the first 15 minutes establishing that
When I’ll be coming back next week, Why will I be coming back next week?
How long will I be coming back next week for and what I'm next going home for
the holidays. We always laugh when we’re together and I matter to her
and she really matters to me.
The impact that volunteering has had on my self-esteem
and self-worth is really quite hard to put into words,
it just makes you feel so much more confident about who you are
and what you have to offer to world.
It requires no special attributes, no prior training, no higher education.
I just turned up. The realization that just me being there is enough to make
a difference has just transformed how I view myself,
my capabilities and my place on this earth.
It has been hugely beneficial to my own mental health and it isn’t just me,
it thinks this way. There is so much exciting
Research being done about the helpers high and the link between mental health
and volunteering. And this is being done by everyone from
the Mental Health Foundation to Vice.
My personal favorite piece is an op-ed in The Guardian by Brigid Delaney, who,
like me, had had first hand experience of how volunteering can benefit your mental
health. And she found it had become her own form of self care.
And in her piece, she calls the readers to ditch all kind of twisted,
modern notion of what it means to cap oneself and instead reach out towards
the community. Wouldn't it be so powerful if every time we fall down,
every time we thought we weren't good enough, like we couldn't achieve anything,
we looked into the community where there was need
and we tried to help instead of indulging in the current trend of
I need to look after myself on my own thinking,
I need to look to others to look after myself.
Swapping, Face packs and Candles for face-to-face interactions
or Zoom interactions that will benefit both the volunteer and
the person they’re trying to help.
So this is what I'm trying to advocate for a volunteering self care revolution.
Having seen the way the volunteering has affected my everyday life,
I believe it has amazing potential to transform society by galvanizing both old
and young to help others and in doing so, help themselves.
We need to understand that our own health is inextricably linked to
the health of our fellow human beings.
I’m not asking you to do this altruistically This is
a true value exchange there is so much need out there.
And wouldn't it be amazing if in order to help ourselves,
we could also alleviate that need?
It was a Wednesday of my pre-covid second year, and it was not a good day.
I overslept, I missed a tutorial and I had an impending deadline.
I was also 20 minutes late to volunteering and I was sprinting there.
I was stressing, sweating,
and I just had these thoughts going round and round in my head.
You’re not good enough, you’re letting everyone down. You’re a failure.
And I got to the door and I pressed the buzzer and
I see my friend running towards me through the glass fist in the air
the purple finger nails saying, yes, I knew you would come.
It's now over a year since I first wrote this talk.
And this week when that week when I gave this talk,
it was actually the last time that me and the woman
I volunteer with got to see each other face to face
while I feel like I already knew how important our relationship was to me,
I think through having to be apart and not being able to see each other,
I've come to realize just how vital it is.
I feel so fortunate that she has amazing carers that I have
a great relationship with and so they’ll lend her their phones
and we get to FaceTime each other once a week
and our catch ups honestly at some point to have kept me going.
She doesn’t see it as just another Zoom call.
She's always so joyous and so excited despite having to shield.
But now over a year and we don't even really ever have anything new to tell
each other, but they just light up my day
and it's only highlighted to me just how important our relationship is
and how it really can get me through the darkest of times.
Seeing and experiencing the just sheer joy that human companionship can bring
is just the most amazing and overwhelming thing.
It really is the best feeling in the world.
So let's be the generation that helps others to help ourselves.
Let's let's start this voluntary revolution. Help me to help you.
Thank you very much.