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A Volunteer can Change the World!

Naoki HATA (National Institute of Technology, Kure College)

Hello everyone. I have a question for you. Have you ever participated as a volunteer? Some of you probably have. Most people think it's troublesome and they have never volunteered for anything and I thought the same way three years ago.

In my junior high school some students actively did volunteer work. I often participated as a volunteer too but actually, I didn't really like it. So it wasn't real “volunteer'' work. One day though, my perception of being a volunteer changed. My job was to clean the lavatory at school. At first, I just wanted to finish my work as quickly as possible. Then while I took a break, I noticed that someone always cleaned the toilets so we could use them in comfort when we needed to go. When I finished my cleaning that day, I had changed my opinion on being a volunteer. As a result of that experience, I found I had a better view on doing volunteer work.

It is written in the dictionary that a volunteer is someone who does a job ‘willingly without being paid.' However, I thought this was incorrect because I actually got some splendid satisfaction out of doing this. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't like cleaning toilets per-se, but it led me to change my perspective on how I see volunteer work.

Today I would like to tell you about one of my most recent experiences. Hopefully, even if just a few of you think that you would like to participate as a volunteer because of my speech, I'll be elated. So let me tell you about the volunteer work that I participated in about five months ago.

On August 20th, 2014, Hiroshima City had a record rainfall. A huge landslide had taken so many innocent lives. My friend's house was also damaged by fallen earth and sand. That's why I thought to myself, “I want to support those people who have lost so much.'' Just three days after the disaster, I participated as a volunteer to help the disaster-hit area.

In the morning of that day, I was full of enthusiasm. It took about an hour to get there. When I arrived at the disaster scene, I was lost for words. Even though I had seen the damage on TV, I was still surprised at the enormity of the damage. There were places where people just couldn't go, and there was a terrible smell, something similar to horse manure. There were buried cars and houses that didn't resemble houses anymore. I controlled my emotions and I helped with the earth and sand removal. There were many people who participated as volunteers. Since then there have been over one thousand volunteers every day at the Hiroshima landslide disaster area. We all did the same simple work filling sandbags. The earth and sand was wet and so heavy. But our hard efforts didn't seem to make much of a difference. And because there were large rocks, some more than 50 cm long buried deep, I wasn't able to dig them out with my shovel. I had to remove rocks by hand. I repeated the work all day and my back hurt so much because of the weight of the sandbags and my clothes were drenched with sweat. Then without realizing it, it was suddenly evening.

Because I participated in this volunteer work, I learned many things. For example, I learned first-hand how true Aristotle was when he said “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.'' As you know the power of one may be small but combined with others and with synergistic teamwork the total power can be enormous. I learned how amazing the power of volunteers can be. I also learned to be able to feel real happiness. You know, I usually eat good food, take a bath every day and lie in a warm bed at night. But people in disasters can't do that. In such circumstances, it is really hard to do things we take for granted. So I'm always grateful for everything and I think I became a happier and more appreciative person.

In summary, I think everyone understands that doing volunteer work is not really for free. A volunteer has the ability to make anything possible. As well as putting smiles on the faces of those who have experienced such catastrophes, volunteers can feel good, smile to themselves and mean it.

One of the biggest problems facing our society is the care of our aging community. The need for helpers and volunteers is growing in this field and if we can become satisfied with helping the aged, improving their quality of life and learning from it, we can smile at ourselves with great success. If our small powers join together, we can make more people happier. I want to make the world a better place where smiles don't fade out. It's only a small step for you but if you have the opportunity to work as a volunteer and make somebody else near you smile with a little help you can give to them, let us take that opportunity. A volunteer can change the world!