EPISODE 4

Hello everyone, and thank you for tuning into episode 4 of Healthful. I’m Siluni, happy to be your host. The purpose of this episode is to teach you how to help your community, ways you can contribute and make a difference, and I’ll also be getting into ways high schoolers like me can get creative with their community service hours, and make them stand out.  For example, I started my own community service project while feeling helpless in quarantine. I’ll talk about that later in this episode, which you can use for inspiration. If you listened to the first episode, it was about what it REALLY means to be a healthy person, so please go listen to that first if you haven’t already. It’ll help you understand the purpose of this episode. So there, I talk about two parts of being healthy. The first is taking care of various aspects of your own health. I also said that taking care of your community and contributing to the health of your society plays another huge role in truly becoming a healthy person. That is why we are getting into that part today, since we already got into how to take care of yourself in episode 2, self care. So before we get into anything else, why help your community in the first place? A lot of high schoolers volunteer because service hours are required to graduate. But that’s not what I mean. I mean why should you volunteer even if it isn’t required? Because your help is needed. Nothing you do is too small. You are still contributing to a cause in some way. There are so many issues in this world, racism, sexism, so many people who need help, a mother earth that needs protecting, and more! You can help. You can also meet people and build a community with other great people who also want to give back. You can build bonds over whatever it is you are passionate about. For example, if you are volunteering for an earth organization that works to save the earth, plants trees, or clean up trash on the beach, you can bond with people who also care about the environment. Volunteering has the power to connect people of different genders, races, sexualities, ages, religions, and nationalities. Helping the community makes you feel good. If you think about it, even little things like picking up a pencil when someone drops it, or opening a door for someone feels good. Volunteering or helping your community is like a huge step up from that, and it gives you that same great feeling. After helping, you also naturally feel a sense of accomplishment, and it actually increases your confidence. You can gain experience. Even job experience. If you want to become a teacher for example, you can volunteer as a tutor to see what it’s like. So you contribute to a cause, become happier, more confident, gain experience, build bonds, make a difference, and more! That should be more than enough reasons to help your community, because it not only benefits others, but also yourself. That is why I said that helping your community is an important part of becoming a healthy person yourself.

I want to start by saying helping your community and volunteering are different things and can sometimes be the same. Like volunteering at a hospital is volunteering and is also helping your community. Reducing the amount of plastic you use is not necessarily volunteering, but it is still helping the community and the environment. I will give ways to do both in this episode. 

There are so many ways you can help your community. There are several categories and ways you can do this. Some possibilities are Agriculture to support communities in food deserts. You can make a community garden, do a permaculture project, or do educational workshops at schools (or at your own school). Then there’s Children and Youth. You can work at an orphanage or nursery, coach a kids sports teams for at-risk youth, the possibilities for any of these are really endless. Community development. You can organize support groups for people with anxiety, depression, or need emotional support. Education, you can join tutoring volunteer programs, tutor at your local library, etc. This doesn’t have to mean just academic education. You can educate people about important world issues, about their health, how to play an instrument, etc. Then there is the environment. There are already so many programs and projects working to help the environment. People are coming together to clean up trash on beaches, plant trees, even trying to live waste free or shopping in bulk is helping the community, even if it isn’t volunteering. Health is another big category. You can visit patients, give them cards, and flowers, or volunteer at the hospital. During this time, staying at home or wearing a mask and encouraging others to do the same is helping the community so much, even if it isn’t volunteering. Human Rights is very important to advocate for. You can use your social media for good and post about important issues like Asian Hate, women’s rights, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ+ rights, and more. You can go to protests. There are so many more categories like animals, arts and culture, technology (for example giving computers to those who don’t have one and can’t do online school during covid), seniors, etc. All of these are very important to society, and you don’t need to choose just one to help out with. You can help out with all of these. But there are so many ways to help your community and volunteer, that you’ll want to choose some that you are very passionate about. If you are passionate about helping the environment, and it really means something to you then do that. If a loved one has ever suffered from a sickness, and it’s hit you hard, or you’ve always wanted to help sick people, give someone hope, or make someone smile, volunteer at a hospital with patients. It really depends on who you are as a person and what really matters to you.

You have some options on how you choose to volunteer. For one you can choose to volunteer virtually, or in person. You can always do both as well. You don’t need to stick to one option. You can join volunteer programs that are created for volunteers to help a certain cause. The cause can be global or just local. Volunteer match is a great website that I recommend to look for volunteer programs anywhere. Another thing you can do is come up with your own volunteer opportunity and do your own thing without joining an actual volunteer program. You can take inspiration from me on this. I created a volunteer program at my high school called Cards for CHLA, where students can create cards with thoughtful messages for the healthcare workers at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. They email me their designs, I print them out, package them, deliver them to the hospital, and I give them service hours for graduation. This is something I started myself, and I’ll tell you my thinking here. So we’ve been in quarantine and have been affected by the coronavirus for some time now. I just felt kind of helpless saying at home while frontline healthcare workers are really risking their lives for us. I decided that I didn’t want to feel helpless anymore. My mom actually works at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. So I asked her if it would be ok if I could make cards and she could deliver them when she goes to work. After she said ok, I realized that I could turn this into a volunteer opportunity, so we could get a lot more messages to the healthcare workers, just to make them feel really appreciated and loved. It can mean a lot. I actually still have it running, and I’ve heard back and received thank yous from the workers. So it means a lot for me and for me. So the point being here, you can start something small just in your community or at your school. I just reached out and had the school advertise it as well. I created this because I felt helpless about something. You can do the same. 

Another thing you can do is start a club in your community or at your school. Next year, I’m starting a club called feminist club at my school with a friend. It will advocate for women’s rights and celebrate women’s achievements. You can start a club like this to advocate about important issues. I have a club at my school called Green club where we help the environment and plant trees. There are really endless possibilities, and it leaves you to really get creative.

Helping your community and volunteering helps others along with yourself. It’s also so flexible, and allows you to get creative on how you want to make a difference whether that’s starting a club at your school, creating your own volunteer program, or participating in a clean up project. You can help your community even at home, by reducing your waste, turning off your water and lights when you’re not using it, or reducing your plastic use, even if it can’t be labeled as volunteering. You can help people you love by giving them gifts, making them food, taking them places, or just spending time with them. That’s still making a difference. You can be ambitious and travel, helping people in third world countries. Helping your community and volunteering has such a wide range. It’s really up to you on how you choose to do it. Ask yourself who or what is important to you and what can do about it? If you have any further questions about this, anything related to Healthful, or not, tweet or email it to me, and it will probably get answered in an episode! I’m so thankful to have this platform, and thank you for listening. Let me know if you have any episode suggestions! This was Siluni with Healthful.