Voluntary work 'more beneficial'
By Juliana Sun

Apart from doing part time jobs, what other things do university students do? Playing, drinking, or sleeping? A number of university students enjoy being a volunteer for community service in which they believe they can obtain extracurricular knowledge.

Aaron Fong, director of Centro De Juventude Associacao General Dos Operarios De Macau, stated that working as a volunteer is not an easy job since it involves helping mostly people in need such as elderly people, the handicapped, teenagers, etc. Volunteers do not get paid for their work.

"Being a volunteer, we can learn a lot of things that we cannot learn from books," Fong said. "We've just learned the theory in books, but we can put into practice a lot of things through voluntary activities. We can also learn how to build up a team since the voluntary work emphasizes that a group of people accomplish their work in unity."

Fong is an enthusiastic volunteer. He has been with the Agorn Association (Centro De Juventude Associação General Dos Operáios De Macau) since 2003. However, he has always been active with voluntary work. He joined a student union to be a team leader in high school and university. He helped his teachers to do some class work in junior high school. In senior high school, he served as a helper in some projects. He was a master of ceremonies for karaoke competitions in his university years. In 2000, he planned a travel exchange activity for his university, which was for local students to exchange their campus experience in foreign countries with foreign students. The activity drew an eager response and was highly successful. This is the most impressive memory in Fong's voluntary experience.

He thinks that the most benefit for a volunteer is that he is able to meet people who come from various walks of life since he needs to contact professionals for different kinds of activities. For example, if there is an activity about law, he needs to find some guests who have knowledge in this field. He will contact them by phone first and then invite them personally to the event. In addition, planning an activity is not an easy job. Volunteers have to spend a lot of time to plan an activity. Olive Lei, a Year 4 student majoring in Marketing, has also been a member of the planning council for two years. She said that she has to spend three months or more to plan an activity. The duties of planning an activity include: finding sponsorship, writing a letter to potential sponsors, designing posters and banners, planning promotional activities, contacting some artists and guests, organizing a participating group, etc. She spends more than 30 hours working in the Agorn Association per week. She does not have much free time to play, go shopping or drinking. However, working in the planning council can help her learn the ability of leadership, how to write a letter for sponsorship, how to organize an event, as well as how to control the activities' budget.

She said that we were taught to take care of people, but we only get this message through books or our teachers' instruction. We seldom have an opportunity to put the idea into practice. Many people know that we should help elderly people or other needy people, but how many people are doing this in reality? However, if they do voluntary jobs, they will be in direct contact with people in need who are in a very difficult situation. They will then realize that, in comparison, they are so fortunate to be in a warm and happy family. They should take good care of themselves and their parents. Especially for young people, they often appreciate little what they have and know nothing about what happiness really means. To be a volunteer can make them realize not only how to love people with their heart, but also how much love they have received from other people.

The Agorn Association is one of the volunteers' organizations in Macau, which mainly provides service for all teenagers. The duties of the volunteers are to bring out teenagers' talent through various competitions. They will provide some useful information to teenagers through activities or lectures, such as the competition of master of ceremonies, dancing competitions, karaoke competitions, fashion shows, and so on. These shows provide opportunities for teenagers to exhibit their talents and skills on the stage since many of them seldom have a chance to do so in front of the public. The Agorn Association welcomes more teenagers to join its activities. Andrew Lo, a Year 1 student majoring in Civil Engineering, said that he learned how to get along with others after he joined this organization. This experience helped him to be a smart person. It has extended his social contact with different people, which is helpful for him in the future.

"I am not against the idea that university students do part time jobs after lessons. The important thing is doing part-time jobs should not affect our study," Lo said. "However, I think university students should participate more in voluntary activities. It is because in our part-time jobs, we have contact with just a few people. By doing a voluntary job, it can enrich our knowledge and experience. We can meet people from various walks of life and learn diversified knowledge through contacts with guests, sponsors as well as through promotional activities. Moreover, doing voluntary jobs can make us more creative. Since we will face different problems in each activity and have to find solutions. But the nature of our part-time jobs is often quite mechanical. We can also have exchange opportunities with other volunteers' organizations to go to other countries, which cannot be achieved through part-time jobs. Therefore, compared to part time jobs, voluntary work can be more beneficial," he added.

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