VOICES OF VOLUNTEERS FROM GERMANY

Last year I moved to a new city and looked for an opportunity to get in contact with people and the place. And I wanted to do something useful and concrete besides writing my master thesis, and of course I wanted to widen my own horizon. So this is why I became a volunteer. I also feel, that I can contribute something myself to change social structure: in my project for asylum-seekers I support others to volunteer and to understand living conditions of others.

A couple of months ago I finished my studies and now I am looking for a job. And in this period my volunteer work is very beneficiary on a personal level: it gives me a daily structure and tasks to fulfil. I learn a lot of new things, gain work and life experiences and see things from a different perspective. It helped me also with my professional orientation: now I know where my strengths are: conceptional work, organisation, implementation and QM of learning and training measures. I also gain a lot of practical experiences: what it is like to be responsible for a project, how to organise oneself efficiently and how to implement the project step for step.

Kathrin Zenger, Germany