Career-based volunteering can be a valuable personal investment
Volunteering is often praised for not only helping career development but also our sense of wellbeing. In a recession, the idea of volunteering can seem like a daunting prospect due to the lack of monetary return, but are the benefits of volunteering more valuable? At futureCoders we are proud to offer a range of volunteering opportunities.
Volunteering has been shown by extensive research to be incredibly beneficial to the individual. It gives volunteers an increased sense of personal efficacy and increased personal empowerment, both of which massively improve mental wellbeing and increase happiness. Specifically, it has been well documented that volunteering improves life satisfaction, self-esteem and happiness; it also reduces depressive symptoms and psychological distress.
Volunteering can improve physical wellbeing too — reducing mortality risk and functional inability; improving physical health. It remains unclear in research what precise aspects of volunteering are directly responsible for this, however, it is undeniable, whether indirectly or directly, that volunteering is greatly profitable for the individual. Volunteering is not only advantageous for the individual but society as a whole, relieving societal issues such as unemployment, crime, loneliness and poor health.
In a broader sense, volunteering allows individuals easier access to new social groups. This is even more relevant in the current pandemic where it is increasingly more difficult to form new bonds and interactions. Group membership — that being the involvement within a social and/or professional group of people — has vastly positive impacts on wellbeing and social interaction. Volunteering gives individuals an easy avenue in which to achieve this with like-minded others. Through the shared identity that volunteers have with other volunteers in their organisation, they are more likely to form connections through cooperation and a common worldview. This group membership in turn has positive effects on the individual’s outer world experience as it transforms their relationships and interactions with others both within and outside the group. The support network that is created by group membership improves an individual’s coping skills and can give individuals a greater life meaning.
Volunteering is said to be most worthwhile and effective on a volunteers health and wellbeing when the volunteer assumes multiple roles, however too many can have an adverse effect on stress levels. It is therefore key that organisations offering volunteering opportunities give volunteers responsibility and variety but are mindful not to overload them.
futureCoders has a range of volunteer opportunities, each offering its own set of skills development and sense of reward.
Our programmes include a virtual work experience programme where we bring learning developers together with professional developers to form a team that will produce a real app for a real client. Volunteers can have a real impact on our learning developers and on those who benefit from the apps we develop. Our clients are generally charities or community organisations and our apps have a strong social purpose.
Our other learning programmes combine learning of programming with a small team app development project. Our Code Canteen weekly event provides an online space for collaborative learning of programming.
futureCoders have opportunities for volunteers for most of our programmes. Roles include:
- programming mentor (Python, Javascript, testing, pair programming, programming challenges)
- teaching assistant (mostly python, involves mentoring and some administration)
- speaker (we look for speakers at Code Canteen and at futurecoders, and also to deliver brown-bag style talks within our software teams)
- app development mentor (supporting our young developers, as part of the team, with version control (git), design, testing, pair programming, working through sprints, estimating, working against acceptance criteria and well scoped tickets, with agile methodology and across the software lifecycle)
Volunteering with us can help with getting ready for a career in software, with continuing professional development and, of course, with the personal satisfaction you can gain from knowing that you have helped someone break through some of those barriers to learning that may exist in the wider education landscape.
Contact us about volunteering, we would love to hear from you: karen@futurecoders.org.uk
