Is volunteering valuable for teenagers - Research Paper Example

?Is volunteering valuable for teenagers? Introduction Without any doubt, the American society is one of the few in the world where young people are nurtured in a way that makes them develop a lot of love and patriotism for their country. This therefore sends a lot of sense of commitment to the minds of the growing teenager of America. In most cases, these young people find the need to work in various volunteering activities as a means of showing the commitment and patriotism with which they were nurtured to their country. It is not for nothing that the United States of America stands out as one country with a lot of volunteering opening and avenues in the world (Norman, 1999). As the years go by and students; mainly teenagers graduate from various high schools and colleges, these students take up volunteer works of one form or the other. But current concerns among reviewers and researchers have raised the need to ask the basic question as to whether or not volunteering is valuable for teenagers. The need for this question emanates from a number of specific cases that some teenage volunteers have gone through of late. For instance there have been reports of teenagers whose services are tagged as unwelcoming by superiors with whom they work in their volunteer jobs. So is volunteering valuable for teenagers? Specifics Inexperienced people having to take demanding jobs One of the very first and common cases of teenagers in volunteering jobs has to do with the fact that these teenagers who are often unskilled in the field in which they take up tasks as they deliver their volunteer works are often forced t fit into highly demanding jobs and tasks. There have actually been such reports in areas such as the health sector, education sector and rescue services (Olewiler, 2004). This situation is however a development that is against the basic principles and provisions of teenagers in volunteering. Furthermore, it creates a situation whereby the teenagers are not able to fit well into the demanding jobs they are given because they are inexperienced in those fields. Resultantly, the volunteers are seen by people they are supposed to help such as patients (for the health sector) and students (for the education sector) as inexperienced and unprofessional people who do not deserve to give them (beneficiaries) services. In effect, the volunteers do not receive the respect and co-operation they need from people around them to deliver their duties. As a solution to this specific situation, it is important to assign teenagers only to those kinds of jobs that do not demand any special experience or professionalism to go about. They could also be made to work only as assistance and not taking up demanding tasks. If this recommendation is adhered to, chances are that the services given in the course of volunteering will be valuable to teenagers because those tasks will be valued by beneficiaries. Health risks involved One other specific issue that continues to exist as a phenomenon of great concern for teenagers who are into volunteering jobs has to do with the health provisions of these young people. One undoubting fact is that several teenagers who go into volunteer jobs of different kinds do so during vacations when they are supposed to be having break from stressful tasks so that they can recuperate their health. However, these young once forgo the need to restore their health after weeks of stressful academic activities to take up volunteer jobs. Undoubtedly, this development puts a very high level of psychological struggle on volunteers (Byrnes, 2005). Subsequently, volunteers are not able to give off their maximum levels of energy into whatever tasks that are assigned to them. For those of them who work with lazier faire leaders who may want most of the daily activities in place to be done by volunteers, the volunteers are seen as underperformers who are not dedicated to the service of the nation. In effect, the volunteers are not given friendly working environment but a hostile one. In order to taker for the health needs of volunteers whiles looking at the need to serve their countries, it is recommended that they should be made to start their volunteer duties only after they have had some days of absolute rest within their vacation periods. In the absence of this, teenagers will hardly appreciate the value of the volunteer work they do because they are going to have a feeling that society is trading their health for service. The use of volunteer work as a means of making up for economic inadequacies Even though it is generally accepted that volunteer work is done for free and without any stipulated remuneration, it is also known that volunteers have some benefits that take that make up for the few days they spend at post. Due to economic inadequacies and hardships, it is common knowledge that most young people who are faced with some kind of financial difficulties take up volunteer work in order to make some savings to take care of their immediate needs. In most underprivileged homes in America, students who are teenagers have often had the idea that instead of staying at home during vacations to depend on their parents for their daily provisions, they would join volunteer groups where they will often be camped and have their basic needs catered for. As such awkward mentality sets in, the resulting situation is that volunteers do not show the level of commitment expected of them in the jurisdiction of their duties. The notion that some volunteers come on board only to have their basic needs catered for also creates a situation among supervisors whereby some supervisors do not accommodate volunteers with a good heart due to the suspicion that any of them could be as crook as the few others who have often times exhibited such bad attitudes. Volunteers not being accorded needed support and respect because of the idea that they are temporary Another significant challenge that most teenage volunteers face that undermine their feeling of being valued by society for the services they render has to do with the fact that volunteers are often not accorded the needed support and respect they need to go about their duties because of the idea that they are temporary workers and would not be around for long. Indeed when such practices that belittle the intelligence and commitment of volunteers set in, they are only with one option and that is for them to think that their services are not appreciated. It is unfortunate that in most instances where volunteers are denied the support and respect they need, the offenders are often senior employees they go to work with. In a typical working environment, employees are mindful of the way they treat their colleague workers because they know that if they give them bad treatment, they would have other days to be paid back for such attitudes. But for volunteers who often serve as passers by, they are given undeserving treatment with no codes of remorse attached. It is strongly recommended that there should be a code of conduct within institutions and organizations where volunteers are often posted. Such code of conduct should clearly spell out the need to see volunteers as colleague workers who will be given all necessary support and respect that permanent workers require and deserve. Larger perspective Weak national policy for the youth All the specific scenarios of various problems and challenges that teenage volunteers go through can be itemized and summed into certain broader and larger perspectives that have national concerns. One of such larger national concerns has to do with the weak national policy for the youth that is currently being experienced in America. Even though on paper there are a number of national youth policies, most of these policies have been criticized as lacking affirmative actions for their implementations (Campbell and Smith, 2006). It is not surprising therefore that there seem not to be any clear cut direction for how issues of the youth should be carried out. If there was a very strong youth policy that had all the needed backing of a working policy, there is no denying the fact that issues of teenagers in volunteering work would have been factored into the policy to ensure a consistent way of running the affairs of the country. Though a phenomenon like teenagers in volunteering work may have its own merits and demerits, it is possible to concentrate only on the merits and empower them to be more resultant with a policy and affirmative action in place. Poor volunteering system discouraging the youth from actively involving themselves in volunteer work Another issue of national concern that seem to be a resultant condition for the alarming rate of non-involvement in volunteer work by the youth has to do with the lack of a volunteering system in place. It would be noted that such vacuum leaves no other medium to educate and sensitize the youth on the need to involve themselves in volunteer work. The absence of such volunteering system also leaves no medium to equip managers and owners of businesses on the need to work harmoniously with teenage volunteers. In fact, if managers and administrators of various organizations and institutions where teenage volunteers are accommodated are well equipped on orientation on how they are supposed to interact and treat teenage volunteers. It is therefore strongly recommended that there should be regulated volunteering system that strictly looks at the interest of teenagers and the need to focus much of the attention of nation’s volunteer system on teenagers. Positive views Offers the less experienced opportunity to learn from the experienced There are several benefits that come with the voluntary duties offered by teenagers in the country and all around the world. Some of the benefits go directly to the teenagers involved whiles others go to the society. It is however in reference to the benefits that go directly to the teenagers that the core objective of the current project that has to do with the value of volunteering to teenagers comes in. in this regard, it can be said that in the course of volunteer work, teenagers are offered a lot of opportunity to learn from experienced managers and administrators who serve as their supervisors. Because most volunteers are students, they tend to take up volunteer work in areas that relate to their field of study in school. Subsequently, the volunteering work gives the teenagers several practical experience that would otherwise had been absent in the classroom. This point therefore holds a major justification for the assertion that indeed volunteering is valuable to teenagers. Fills vacuums resulting from employee turnover On the part of the society, volunteering work comes with very huge advantage and benefit in terms of filling vacuums and vacancies resulting from employee turnover. Day in and out, there are huge vacuums created as a result of employee turnovers (Reynolds, 2001). Most of these turnover situations occur in institutions where the rate of employment is very low and as a result any vacancies remain unfilled for very long time. As such, it has always taken the efforts and bold steps by volunteers to occupy such vacancies. Teenage volunteering would thus forever go down well with society as a very useful way of catering for the employment needs of the nation that would otherwise have long been neglected. Reviewers thus continue to champion teenage volunteering as very illustrious mechanism that keep the labor front running on constant basis. Even though there are those who have often criticized the inexperienced of teenagers in taking up sensitive positions, the fact remains that half a loaf is always better than none. Opportunity to fit into the dynamic and advancing model of the labor force such as inclusion of IT Even more, the use of teenagers in the labor force gives them the opportunity to appropriately adjust to major reforms and changes in the workforce. Much of these adjustments have to do with dynamic and advancing models of managing businesses. It is for instance known that unlike some decades back, the labor front did not demand so much involvement of information technology tools as it being demanded today. In essence, it is important to ensure that the future leaders of the labor market are always allowed to have fairer idea of what they will be expecting in their time when they take full charge of affairs of the labor front. As teenagers who other than the various volunteer works would only have been passive on-lookers at some of the paradigm shift in the working industry are given the opportunity to be really part of the shift, the guarantee is that they will easily fit in future; when their time comes to take full charge of the labor market. A way of filling social vacuum that could have resulted in social immorality Modern researchers have also looked critically at the fact that given any chance where teenagers are allowed to spend long times doing nothing productive, they are likely to involve themselves in attitudes and lifestyles that do not benefit them (Creswell, 1994). Some of these activities also go against the peace and stability of society as a whole. Examples of these activities are the various forms of delinquencies and social immorality including robbery and vandalism. The avenue created with the teenage volunteer programs is therefore a very positive and advantageous moment to save most of these teenagers from issues that could possibly land them into terminal and projected problems. From such a perspective, there is no denying the fact that it can boldly be said that various teenage volunteering programs are indeed valuable to teenagers and should therefore be well structured to make it possible for the youth to grasp the full benefits that they carry. Negative views Potential source of unemployment among the youth As much as some analysts hail the fact that teenage volunteering activities help in filling vacancies in various institutions, there are those who also argue that there is a resultant effect of such practice on unemployment in the country (Creswell, 1994). reviewers who view the situation from this perspective believe that the problem is likely to take place because successive government who come to develop the idea that teenage volunteers will be available to occupy certain key and vital portfolios will always relax on the need to create more vacancies to accommodate other young people who will be seeking work to do after school. In effect, teenage volunteer act as stumbling blocks that impede the possibility that genuinely deserving people will get employed to places where they will remain for long. Another situation also has to do with the fact that governments and other employers are always more comfortable dealing with volunteers other than permanent workers because of the notion that volunteers do not put much stress on budgets. With such a way of thinking, employers create artificial unemployment because they fill vacancies with teenage volunteers rather than deserving graduates whose salaries are higher. Conclusion From the major discussions in this paper, it can be concluded that teenage volunteer programs are indeed valuable to teenagers as they come with a lot of advantages. There are however major challenges that are worth addressing if the need to maximize the benefits and importance of teenagers in volunteer programs are to be tapped to its fullest. As the country finds means of raising the capacity of its human resource, it is important that much attention and focus be given to the need to start training teenagers to take up challenging duties in future by indulging them in all forms of public and private sector volunteer work. REFERENCE LIST Byrnes, N. 2005. Smarter Corporate Giving [Electronic Version]. Businessweek Online (Businessweek.com). Retrieved Nov. 28, 2005 from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_48/b3961607.htm. Campbell, L. M., & Smith, C. 2006. What makes them pay? Values of volunteer tourists working for sea turtle conservation. Environmental Management, 38(1), 84-98. Creswell, J. 1994. Research Design: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Norman, L. 1999. Community empowerment approaches to environmental stewardship. University of Guelph, Guelph, ON. Olewiler, N. 2004. The value of natural capital in settled areas of Canada. Toronto, ON: Ducks Unlimited and the Nature Conservancy of Canada. Reynolds, K. 2001. Take your partner for the corporate tango: a guide to developing successful corporate and community partnerships. Adelaide, South Volunteering SA Inc. Read More