Ejder's Volunteering Story

I first joined CommUNITY Barnet as a volunteer in April 2015 and have found it to be a very intriguing, pleasurable and rewarding experience. By volunteering, I have met lots of people, made some great friends, boosted my confidence, learnt new skills and enhanced my CV. I have participated in events, such as the RAF Museum Careers Fair, which was remarkable, and made me feel very proud to have represented CommUNITY Barnet and contributed to its success.

I had previously volunteered as a primary school teaching assistant for over 5 years; therefore, I have prior experience of volunteering and have always felt appreciated for giving up my time to work with children. I describe myself as being an enthusiastic, extremely loyal and reliable individual, who possesses a positive attitude with an eagerness to please.

At CommUNITY Barnet, I volunteer as a Web Editor and Content Writer, which I decided to pursue due to my passion for writing, along with my willingness to gain the necessary experience in order to enhance my long-term job prospects in the above field. For the past two years, I have been a regular member of a local creative writing workshop, where I enjoy writing stories and poems to submit to competitions with the aim to get published. I have had two successful publications to date and have achieved full attendance. The pleasure gained from my writing was also one of the things that made me decide to embark on my volunteering journey with CommUNITY Barnet. On commencing my volunteering, I was assigned the task of updating the Healthwatch Barnet website, which was a huge necessity, and incorporating the Google Translate widget to improve the site’s accessibility for non-English-speaking users. The successful completion of this task has given me a great sense of achievement.

Furthermore, I have undertaken other responsibilities, such as producing and uploading the blogs for CommUNITY Barnet on a regular basis regarding different events held, meetings attended, etc., which has further developed my editing and writing skills. I have worked with social media, a growing area of employment and one of my many interests, where I obtained and recorded the Twitter analytics for various accounts, including CommUNITY Barnet and Healthwatch Barnet. In addition, I assisted with scheduling important forthcoming tweets for the above accounts using Tweetdeck. I have attended a number of meetings to perform note-taking duties, which is a significant part of my job as a Support Worker at Middlesex University, where I support students with disabilities by taking notes in their lectures and seminars during the term-time. This has enabled me to apply the relevant writing experience acquired from my Support Worker role to my volunteer role, which has been beneficial. I am very pleased to say that it has been extremely interesting to take on a wide variety of tasks at CommUNITY Barnet, and I have enjoyed every minute of it.

I would like to thank Jennifer for being a fantastic supervisor and for offering me the most amazing volunteering opportunity in an outstanding and very friendly environment. I would also like to thank Helen, Julie and the whole team for making me feel welcome and for making CommUNITY Barnet a wonderful place to volunteer in. It is an absolute pleasure to work with such lovely people, and I feel privileged be part of a brilliant team who always excel in what they do.

I would strongly recommend volunteering to others due to the numerous benefits it brings, some of which have been stated above. From what I have learnt, you have nothing to lose and a whole lot more to gain.

Click on the following link to find out more about CommUNITY Barnet’s exciting volunteering opportunities and help make a difference today: http://www.communitybarnet.org.uk/. We look forward to hearing from you.