I
always had the itch to do charitable work with a voluntary organization, so I
was delighted to attend the Volunteering Fair run by the LSE Careers Volunteer
Centre in my first weeks at LSE. It was here that I found out about ReachOut—a
mentoring organization working with disadvantaged communities in East London
and Manchester. Being an East Londoner, I decided this was a great opportunity
to scratch the itch and do something for my local community.
Soon
enough I found myself at Brook Community Primary School every Friday afternoon
with a group of 10 year old boys and some similarly minded volunteers. The typical
afternoon session began with an enthralling game of football. It’s a great
start to the session not only because the lads to get run off some nervous
energy, but also because it provides an opportunity to promote teamwork, sportsmanship
and fairness. It also helped to build trust and respect with the mentees—if you
scored a goal you were a king. After football it was straight to the books where
mentor and mentee would work through numeracy and literacy exercises together.
The great thing about ReachOut is that you are paired with the same mentee
throughout the duration of term. This provides the opportunity to be a positive
role model and track progress together throughout the year. Finally, if the
lads were well behaved, then the afternoon would end with an action-packed a
game of dodgeball. This secretly became my favourite time of the week. It was
like being a kid again!
But
it’s not without its difficulties, and these are perhaps the most rewarding
elements of the whole experience. In particular, gaining the trust and respect
of your mentee is challenging and really helps to build your emotional
intelligence. You have to try different techniques, be creative and really
listen to your mentee. I found that my mentee had an incredibly creative side and
kept talking about inventing all these different types of gadgets. I used this
to anchor the value of doing the numeracy and literacy work and it provided a base
on which to build his confidence. At the end of the year I received a letter
from my mentee stating although I was an annoying person, he respected me. I
was chuffed (I was only annoying because I made him do his work)!
So
if you do have the itch to do volunteer work, or if you want to develop your
personal and professional skills, then I would highly recommend you get in touch with the crew at the ReachOut!
Chris Wajzer
