Alexander Lowe shares why volunteering is the gift of giving, not just to others, but to ourselves.
04th of September marked the fourth anniversary of the first Christchurch earthquake. A series of aftershocks followed 187 people lost their lives, city suffered widespread damage with destruction of many iconic buildings and considerable flooding of the area with over 400,000 tons of silt.
However it was not all destruction, loss and misery as the aftermath of the tragedy. Openly gay student Sam Johnson created the Student Volunteer Army that came to the rescue of residents in the earthquake stricken city, with over 13,000 volunteers joining forces for the massive clean-up. The project was so successful, that Sam Johnson was invited to Japan to set up student Army there after 2012 tsunami and later toured the world sharing his experience.
Volunteering brings us closer together, gives us purpose and hope. I think it was no coincidence that youth suicides that NZ is so infamous for had dropped significantly in the aftermath of the Christchurch tragedy. Among all the hardship, young people united in their resilience, lifted up their spirits by finding inner strength and supporting each other, witnessing that they can make a change and have a power to turn things around to the better.
Volunteering can be an incredible gift both for the giver and the taker, letting us reach our potential and also make a difference in the world. I have been volunteering for the Auckland Museum and for the Tiritiri Matangi bird’s sanctuary. This gave me opportunity to get out of my shell and isolation, engage with other people, learn new information and acquire new skills. In return, I gave my queer eye for these organizations by drafting LGBT themed guided tours. I believe that there is a lot of volunteering with untapped LGBT accent on both giving and receiving ends that we can both contribute to and benefit from within our rainbow community.
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Volunteering is an incredible creative and uniting force that can benefit both particular community and the entire society. Amazing LGBT volunteers and straight allies not only bring us queer film festivals and Pride Parades but also save lives by staffing gay support centers. Volunteering is the ultimate gift of giving. It comes with an amazing feeling of empowerment, strength, boosting self-respect and self-esteem. These are ironically the qualities so many in the LGBT community may be struggling with.
How many of us felt trapped, powerless, neglected, unworthy, lonely if not condemned to isolation, at times faulty if not handicapped? I think these intense feelings and hard experiences can be rather similar to what actual inmates and real invalids are coming through.
There has been a lot of evidence to show that caring for others can heal sick and traumatized. Retired soldiers, seniors, inmates and even sick and autistic children have been reported to virtually being transformed through interactions with animals. These services and programs are largely volunteer-driven, benefiting both the volunteers and the people receiving the services. In the US prisons a great success was reportedwith program where inmates look after shelter dogs and train them. Similar programs were developed for the police and war veterans suffering from PTSD.
PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder was first discovered in Vietnam War veterans affected with depressions, inability to work and fit back into their normal lives, reliving the most terrific episodes. However, now PTSD is often diagnosed in civil population, in people who experienced either rather terrifying and stressful events as well as continuous abuse. Not surprisingly, rates of PTSD among LGBT were reported several times higher than in general population.
So gays and lesbians would be most likely to benefit from looking after animals. I have seen myself blossoming personality changes when people had adopted animals or began to be involved with SPCA. I would encourage people to explore a range of available options caring after animals to training and rehabilitation of animals with special needs.
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There is a common perception of gay and lesbian people as wealthy successful wealthy professionals that can reach high by concentrating on their career, and, without burden of children, overspending on their lavish houses, entertainment and holidays. However most vulnerable categories of the society are overrepresented by LGBT.
Indeed, some of us defy bullying and peer pressure to reach to the very top but how many break down and end up at the bottom? How many of sexual workers are LGBT? Rejected by their families, how many ended up in the streets exposed to violence, sexual assaults, drugs, suffering mental and physical traumas? According to study, staggering 40 per cent of homeless youth are LGBT. But when we for example contribute to homeless programs, could we expect to have special programs to target specific needs of the most vulnerable LGBT youth?
LGBT are consistently overrepresented in correction facilities where they are even more susceptible to abuse and mistreatment, by both staff and other prisoners. According to federal estimates, more than 200,000 youth and adults are sexually abused in prisons, with those who identified as “non-heterosexual” being 3 times more likely to report sexual abuse. Transgender prisoners are particularly vulnerable, a study of California prisons found that transgender women in men’s prisons were 13 times more likely to be sexually abused than other prisoners.
There are various volunteer programs in prisons but they are mostly run by Christian organizations that are not known to support or encourage LGBT identity. In the UK, there are special supportive programs for LGBT prisoners that I believe could be implemented in this country too.
And what about senior LGBT citizens? Volunteer visitors for retirement villages are in enormous demand however when I spoke with a social worker I found out that current system does not recognize sexuality, presuming all elderly to be heterosexual. However there are several LGBT retirement villages across the country. LGBT pensioners are more likely to be childless and therefore further stigmatized and isolated, in greater need for sympathy and understanding.
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Volunteering is also crucial for refugees and asylum seekers, who require assistance in adjusting to new life in the new country, connecting with local communities and services. Refugees are often traumatized and isolated and LGBT refugees are particularly vulnerable. While USA accepts a number of LGBT asylums, there is no specific support program for them, in the neighboring Canada there is a range of dedicated LGBT refugee services and even the government supported program to sponsor LGBT refugees to come and settle in Canada.
Gay people still may feel powerless and broken but in fact being different requires courage and strength. Often inspired by masculinity and superheroes, they don’t realize that they may already have super powers just to be able to go through their daily lives. Straight people find this out when, by accident or design, they are put in situation where they seem to be openly gay. In tolerant Canada, Christian straight guy called Timothy Kurek lived through experiment of posing for a gay guy for a year. He lost most of his friends and was verbally and physically abused. He wrote a book about his experience, dedicating the whole chapter to the first time he was called ‘faggot’. “I had to be held back from attacking the person that did it. I never felt so violated and minimized in my entire life, because of that one word.”
An inmate in Leeds prison in the UK spoke to Pink News about the project when he had to represent LGBT for month: “It made me stand in a gay man’s shoes, and feel how all them people I’ve beat up and caused grief with feel, which made me feel small, lower than low, disgusted with myself, a hypocrite if I must say. To know how hard it must be to be gay, how much shit they must go through, how hard it must be to come out and admit they are gay.”
Then in Australia, Jetstar employees last year played a joke on a straight customer by arranging stickers to make huge I AM GAY phrase over his red suitcase. “I am a white heterosexual male. This trifecta of privilege means that I’m not routinely subjected to prejudice,” he wrote. “But for a few minutes I got to walk in the shoes of a gay person in a public place. For no good reason I had had a slur marked over my luggage. I was degraded. I was ashamed. I was humiliated.”
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Volunteering is that incredible gift that helps us see how strong we really are. There must be a reason why many LGBT chose professions that require empathy, becoming doctors, nurses and social workers. To capable of the gift of giving, one should understand the taker well and have sympathy. It may be too daring to dedicate one’s to charity and serving people 24/7 but anybody can still discover the gift of giving by volunteering for a good worthy cause, changing one’s life and making bigger change for the better in our community.
Photo: Daniel Thornton/Flickr