Any volunteers? Anyone? Please? Could anyone please volunteer in order to save time? Is there no one? Uhm....... For this to work I need ten volunteers from each side.
This was the scenario inside a church on a youth Sunday service. The one in-charge was calling out for volunteers to take part in a recreational activity. In spite of her alluring promise of unadulterated fun and unforgettable moments it appeared the youths inside the church numbering around ninety were disinterested, they dramatically developed an unhelpful attitude. The look in their eyes confirmed and betrayed their wonderment about the word ‘volunteer,’ everyone was looking hither and thither, front and back and finally locking their sights on to the floor and made it a contest about who can stare at the floor for the longest duration.
A solid five minute went into the first call out for volunteers and only a couple of volunteers were to be seen on the stage. Now the one in-charge has to resort to drastic measures. She had to call out names, point out a few from odd places along the row of pews and lastly requesting some of her friends so that she has ten volunteers on each side. A whole thirteen minute went into assembling a score of volunteers for a recreational activity that uneventful Sunday afternoon.
I am certain everyone who refused to be of help that fateful afternoon had their own reason. But to think that the remaining seventy youths did not have the courage to participate on their volition gives cause to believe that there must be something wrong with the perception or the ideas of a volunteer for the youths in general. From this fact, genuine personal reasons for inability to be a volunteer could be easily ruled out. It certainly has got something or everything to do with one’s idea of who is a volunteer or who could be a volunteer.
According to Oxford dictionary, the word Volunteer is derived from the French word ‘Volontaire.’ A volunteer is a person who freely offers to do something, a person who works for an organization without being paid or a person who freely enrolls for military service rather than being ordered to do so.
I am sure the youths did not volunteer not for the reason that they were going to do it for free, they weren’t expecting wages. Rather it is one tragic and pointless reason. It has got something to do with one’s pride, the failure to overcome the fear of the thought that if one readily agrees to be a volunteer when called upon then one would be seen as an ‘overly smart.’ It is not the case that they don’t want to be helpful but because they lack the spirit of cooperativeness, it is not the case that they don’t want to be resourceful rather they lack the willingness to be helpful.
Sometimes it’s alarming to think that if no one readily volunteers for such an easy task then in what state will the community be in when participating just for the sake of doing it won’t be enough. In all honesty to be a volunteer on the long run is not as easy as it sounds, moreover in the life of a youth when there is so much to do, to study, to pursue a career. At times the idea of a volunteer seems suicidal because one has to give so much for nothing. And this is the sole reason the spirit of a true volunteer is rare but when one overcome these obstacles, not only does one rise above others it awakens the humanity in people.
If only everyone could overcome their own pride, their fears and come forward when called upon. Not only would the Church benefit from such initiation but the civil society as a whole would be one of vigour and the change everyone is whispering about. As Lt. Col. Doolittle, a volunteer himself rightly said, there's nothing greater than the heart of a volunteer.
Temjenyanger, Kohima
