Building friendships and skills, enriching life experiences and travel are often quoted as the main benefits of volunteering – it is what draws people in. Today, I want to talk about some obvious, yet little talked about, benefits of volunteering.

At 23, I had completed two university degrees and found myself disillusioned and unemployed. After completing over 50 job applications – between 2018 and 2019 – I was faced with an avalanche of rejections and the far worse – no reply. It would take another 50 job applications to find my first post-graduate job. I had a lot of free time in between submitting convoluted job applications but no money to do anything with it. I tried my best; I did a lot of painting and learned to cook. However, my friends were all living in different cities, and I couldn't see them – I felt lonely and helpless. No one wanted me. I applied for cleaning jobs, and despite my experience of working as a bedmaker at Cambridge University, I was also rejected. The idea that I am not good enough and that I had possibly wasted my time at university affected me emotionally.

In January 2019, during my regular job hunting hours, I spotted an advertisement for volunteering Online Listers wanted at a local Oxfam shop. I thought that I might as well apply since I had the desired skills. It was an opportunity to do something productive. It was an opportunity to use my skills to help others. Little did I know that this volunteering experience would help me land my first post-graduate job as a Technical Copywriter for a big retailer.

Volunteering experience serves as a fantastic real-life work experience example on your CV. Nowadays, vocational education comes in more handy than academic education because of that hands-on experience. Even if like me, you had plenty of work experience during university, most employers seem to ignore it. If you are struggling with jobs after you've graduated, I highly recommend volunteering in the area you want to pursue. Even if you did so for projects like short films, volunteering experience with larger operations gives you an extra edge. At the end of the day, it is the accuracy, standard and volume of work that you can produce that makes you a good employee. Whereas the university gives us the luxury to develop a project over months or even a year, it could be long before you have the same luxury in the work world. I happen to think that having the time to develop an idea and nurture it is key; the high-frequency of work that we have to currently carry out is simply too much. Unfortunately, capitalism and our competitiveness created this high-paced working environment, and to break into an industry, you will probably be the person doing the high-volume jobs at first. Alternatively, working hard and pursuing non-conventional career paths such as an online business or travel influencing, is also a great option that could help you avoid those few years of 'low-ranking' jobs. On the other hand, these jobs can equip you with useful skills that you can then apply to your independent work. There's no one right path to follow, so see what works for you, what you enjoy and want to pursue. If you're in a rut, volunteering could be a great option.

Thanks to volunteering at Oxfam, I learned how to list products online, write short product descriptions, operate software used to publish products and take basic product photos. We had limited resources to work with which pushed us to be more creative. For example, for product photos, we worked with a white bed sheet and the camera on our phones. Additionally, we had set online sales goals to meet, another important skill applicable to businesses intent on making a profit (so all of them). I also helped with packaging and dispatching sold items and researched the value of items for sale to price them as accurately as possible. All of these skills have proven invaluable at my new job, and thanks to them, I was able to hit the ground running. Oxfam also provides its' volunteers with a job reference after 3 months of volunteering.

Volunteering, in part, gently lifted my depression. It gave me a reason to get up and walk out of the house. It gave me a structure, a routine. It motivated me. After months of rejections, it felt refreshing to be needed. I met some great people too, whom I miss. I wanted to keep on volunteering but my job plus long travel left me too tired. I should pay a visit to the shop when it reopens (as of writing this article we have been under lockdown that has only recently been lifted due to Covid-19). Finally being able to see my friends, left me with little time to keep old friendships from volunteering afloat; something I greatly regret. Volunteering and Oxfam have given me so much, and somehow I feel like I didn't give enough back.

I also live with anxiety, and so I can be difficult to work with. I tend to stress out a lot, and on occasions, I find it hard to control my emotions. I can end up crying or having a panic attack which is undesired in the workplace. Luckily my manager was trained in this regard, and just an overall lovely human being who was able to make me feel calm. Walking out of my house for the first time in months was nerve-wracking, not to mention I'm a very awkward person who has difficulties dealing with new people. (I do my best at my current job and work with very friendly and understanding people.) Charities such as Oxfam offer people struggling with mental health and differently-abled individuals a place to develop their skills or just a place they could call work for that needed daily structure. I've seen people with social workers volunteering because it helps. Being rejected from the work industry is hard not just financially, but emotionally. I do want to point out that expecting people with different abilities or mental health struggles to work free of charge is not acceptable and should not be normalised. It suggests that certain individuals’ time and effort doesn’t have a monetary value, which it does, everyone’s time has value.

The final and most obvious benefit of volunteering that I wanted to discuss is the positive impact you have on people, communities, animals and the planet. Charities such as Oxfam need volunteers to keep their stores and online shop running. Thrifting is a great way to stop funding fast fashion which, as we know, has devastating effects on the environment and often treats its' workers unfairly. Not to mention, the fewer massed produced items, the better. For every £1 you spend at Oxfam approx. £0.84 goes directly to help poverty-stricken communities.

'On average for every £1 Oxfam spends, 84p goes on our emergency, development and campaigning work, 9p is spent on support and running costs and 7p is invested to generate future income. Of the 84p spent on emergency, development and campaigning work, the breakdown is as follows: 43p went on humanitarian emergencies, 39p on longer-term development and 2p on campaigning and advocacy.' Read the full breakdown of Oxfam's spending here.

Another reason why shops are important for Oxfam is that they provide the charity with funds they can control. Donations made by a business or big investors are often attached with strings; whereas, money generated from shops can be distributed for emergency action funds. They also generate a lot of money. Last year Oxfam shops contributed £1 million towards fighting poverty, so I highly recommend popping into one and picking up some vegan, fair trade chocolate.

There are other great charities to get involved with such as Veganuary, Women's Aid, Greenpeace and WWF. I believe that once you start to care about others and the world, all of these causes become intertwined. They support one another. I'm vegan because I believe that the exploitation of animals for any purpose is immoral. Veganism is the single best thing a person can do for the environment. Since I started paying more attention to climate change and how it affects communities and animals, I might as well look into zero waste and reducing my plastic waste. If I want to be zero waste, thrifting is a great way of upcycling materials and therefore fighting against fast fashion that exploits people and so on.

Personally, I feel better and more content, knowing that my actions are becoming more responsible.