My Volunteering Journey

My association with Blogchatter started with the team reaching out to me saying that many of my blogrolls submitted qualify for the #CauseAChatter challenge that had just begun in the first quarter for this year. This was in Feb. this year as soon as I joined the platform creating my profile. While this marks my journey as a #CauseAChatter champion, my journey as a volunteer began when I was in 6th Grade at school. The earliest I remember was enrolling myself as a part of Scouts & Guides team. I remember wanting to be part of the National Service Scheme (NSS) during my secondary years, but my new school did not have NSS. 

My blogs are a means for me to share my lived experiences in my life, filled with changes and learning from adapting and dealing with the constant changes that I have gone through as a student (K12 completed in 7 different schools) as well as an adult glomad (resident in 4 countries on 3 continents in a span of 13 years).

This year’s UN theme for International Volunteer Day is Volunteer now for our common future. On this day, this makes a lot of sense for me in my mid-life, I can’t claim that I knew about this as a child or even as a young adult. Yet the warmth I felt, when I volunteered and saw that my time and effort created a positive impact wherever I was able to contribute, was something that I wanted to keep. This is what made me to continue volunteering my time, effort, and skills in every place I resided. Once I settled into the new place, I would seek out the local community centre or NGO through the network of friends that I made in the initial phase and start my volunteering journey working for the cause that I felt at home with, in the local community. 

Over the years, I have faced one question that I have always struggled to answer with conviction, not because I did not believe in volunteering, but because I never really paused to think what was it that always brought me to volunteer my time and effort and not my money that I earn from my profession. There have also been times when I have felt low when peers and juniors (sometimes even seniors) have made statements to the effect that excellent skills were probably not used enough to support myself towards mending/uplifting my career path. 

Thanks to Blogchatter’s question for this International Volunteer Day on what #Unstoppable means to me as a #CauseAChatter Champion, my mind raced down the memory lane to come up with the answer to why I always kept being pulled towards volunteering.

Working for a cause is always measured by the impact that it has created and for me this measure was always important. The purpose of my work, I preferred to measure with the impact that it had/has in the overall schema of things. Most people associate success to a number (either the figure of salary that reached our bank accounts, the ordinal number in the race of life, or the hierarchical position in the career ladder), for me it meant the feeling of contentment for me and if someone else also benefited from my work, then that is the cherry on the cake. Volunteering never failed me in this. 

There are different kinds of volunteering based on what you are willing to volunteer: Financial Aid, Time, Expertise & Effort. All of them are essential components to be able to bring the required impact.

While I know what benefit I gained, the measure of impact that my contribution is some instances are unknown so far, maybe because they were seeds of thought planted to initiate/enable change and I had to relocate from there before I could see the progress of my planted seed.

Blogging (close to 2 decades) here & on Momspresso (for the last 3 years), and answering on Quora (at least the last 3 years) is another voluntary activity that I have had the pleasure of doing. This is my way to leaving behind responsible digital footprints of my lived experience and knowledge gained from these experiences, for the future generations to come, because what you put online, remains there forever.

What is in it for me?

This is one question I have faced time and again from many, despite the higher personal benefit gained from volunteering experience. So here I am listing it out again, hoping that this article will serve as my answer in future the next time I encounter the question.

• Personal Satisfaction of Serving by impacting: While financial independence may not be there, I get the experience of deciding how the funds, shared by those volunteering funds for causes close their heart, get utilised to positively impact the recipients of the cause.
• Knowing that my skills are directly being used to impact changes at the grass root level issues and hence will bring a better changed perspective and maybe by extension a better world for our future generations, because I am on the ground working at the grass root level and hence see this impact sooner than most.
• It also helps me identify the causes at the grass root level to give me a front row seat view of how concepts of social and parental conditions, community groupism drive the group think. So, while solutioning, inclusion comes naturally due to having experienced these things on the field rather than just reading a passive version of it in books in the form of theories.
• Helps me become a better person because mindfulness becomes a way of life in every role I don as part of a larger group/community. I am aware that the world of opportunities and privileges aren’t the same for everyone, even within the same community and hence the solutions or community level programmes need to be open and flexible enough to accommodate for this kind of variations, is a deeply ingrained lesson from practically experiencing it.
• The personal detachment also becomes a way of life, while receiving feedback and criticism. Both success and failure are transient, is something that I have learned over the years, and hence the criticisms have started becoming less personal and less trigging. Equally, appreciations bring momentary pleasure, they never get to the additive phase, and I can move on to the next goal or cause that I identify for myself to work for the community wellbeing (that will eventually also cater to my wellbeing).
• Success and failure are impact based rather than number based, which is a huge change in perspective but very calming for my personal self. I am out of the rat race because I know why I am working and not doing it because everyone aspires success. I also do (aspire for success), but just that my success definition has changed.
• It allows me to experiment and learn skills outside my expertise and comfort area through online certification courses that contribute to the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and growth.
• The freedom to work outside the comfort zone also gives me scope relook at my educational qualification based on the country's acts and regulatory norms before I can narrow down on the right degree to top my current qualifications to continue my personal journey of skilling and qualifying, that would enable me to contribute towards the cause and the community with more relevancy and expertise.
• Builds my personal and professional network and helps in personal self-care (with a sense of contentment and accomplishment) for the multitude of reasons mentioned above.

While #sustainability and #EnvironmentalTalks invoke the thought of green initiatives and reduce, reuse & recycle, I think the sustainability and environmental talks are incomplete without the impact of the role of volunteering and volunteers in these. On this International Volunteering Day, sharing my continuous tryst with volunteering till now and one that will continue in future also, is my dedication to this year’s theme in urging those of you who happen upon this blog to start volunteering to experience and enjoy what I have, and if you already are a volunteer, then to continue your journey.

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge (#EnvironmentalTalks & #MentalHealthTalks) and #CauseAChatter Projects.

You can find all my blogs written for the #CauseAChatter challenge here.

You might also like to read:

• Playing a small part in my Social Responsibility
• My First FB Live on 'Coping with Social Change', Learnings & Recommendations

Eco-mindfulness through Home Gardening

Being an ardent plant enthusiast & advocate of responsible living, in my perspective, the word Sustainability always brings up the twin word Mindfulness. Home Gardening (now taking shape as ‘Terrace Gardening’ or ‘Urban Farming’) has emerged as one such mindful hobby, that also contributes to sustainability in more than one way. As the pandemic added to the woes, my home garden was a blessing to help balance my health (mental, physical, and emotional), while keeping my sustainability goals. Happy to share the benefits I and my family reaped and pictures of my Green Hobby over the years!

Natural Stressbuster 

When you are stressed in your daily chores, I have heard many say that taking a quick walk bare foot on Earth and feeling the soil/grass, gives us a much-needed grounding to bounce back. Based on my personal experience, this statement is certainly true. When I am in my home garden, working on the preparation of the soil bed, and caring for the plants (with trimming, weeding and such activities), I lose myself among the calmness of Mother Nature and revel in its beauty and wonder. The green of the garden (among the rest of the colours) is also pleasing to the eyes & mind and has the capacity to calm every other raging emotions. The cool touch of wet earth/grass on my bare foot makes me want to take a deep breath that sends me a message of affirmation that everything is okay, and my Earth will keep me company all my life and embrace me beyond, eliminating the feeling of loneliness.

Also, when we have blooming flowers in our garden (specifically Tulips while in the US, Dahlia, Roses and others), the beauty of the different colours of bloom was like the garden was smiling at us. Never failed to bring a smile to our faces whatever we were feeling till that instant. 

Exhilaration of Creating

The same activities of making the garden bed and caring for the seeds/saplings sown that ground me also give me a high with a sense of exhilaration when I see the shrub/herb/tree flower, laden with fruits of labour and care. Makes me feel that I have done my job as a carer right for the ground and plant flourish. It is the same feeling of seeing your child grow and achieve. This plant/tree is in a sense my child as well. 

Good Health

When your home garden also bears vegetables and fruits, you enjoy the garden to fork experience that enables you to know that the food that you eat has been organically grown. There is also a sense of pride that this food was my effort from start (sowing it to start with) till the end (arriving as the edible dish that adorns the dining table). This also weighs much lesser on the expense pattern of the family as the monetary cost incurred in much less in comparison to a store-bought yield. 

Gardening is the best combination of physical, mental, and emotional workout that you can ever have in one single activity. 

By staying outdoors, you are absorbing natural source of Vitamin D (directly from the Sun) that helps in strengthening of bones & immune system. This also benefits weight loss as per some and helps in reducing depression. Depending on the geographical location, make sure that you step out in the right kind of sun to benefit from it.  

The physical activities that you would involve in while gardening in activities like, prepping the garden bed, sowing, weeding, watering, trimming, cleaning debris & getting rid of pests, and finally reaping the fruits of this labour also helps in physical fitness and weight reduction as different parts of your body (and hence different muscles) are used. 

It can also be a family bonding activity that enhances the emotional connectedness of the family members, especially with the younger ones. While doing so, it also serves as a tool of destressing thereby bringing a holistic wellbeing for the entire family and understanding the science behind it. The same can be the case for an entire community, when you have an option for a Community Garden.

A Sense of Agency & Empowerment

With all the above health benefits, it translates to a hidden reduction in the cost of maintaining the personal wellbeing through not just procurement costs but also through health care and hospitalisation cost being nullified in many cases, including the most seen one of Vit D deficiency that is to be repaired with the help of medicinal/serum supplements.

If you are maintaining a Community Farm (or your friends doing some organic farming ventures in their part-time), it can cater to the needs of the local community and more, by bringing in an additional source of income when you can find the buyers for your produce through your community network. When we can showcase these benefits, we inspire more people in our sustainability journey.

Sustainability begins at home

In school I remember reading about the topsoil erosion and its impact on climate and environment. The easiest way to stop this is by growing grass native to our locality was the solution given in the textbook. Home garden is also a way by which every individual can contribute towards ending the topsoil erosion, maintain balance in water cycle (again a middle school concept), thereby positively impacting the climate change and leading to a more sustainable way of live for our next generations to survive on our planet earth.

There are a lot more benefits than what I have listed above in having a home garden. Do share your take on the same in the comments.

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge - #EnvironmentalTalks and #MentalHealthTalks. 

Four Shopping Habits to Avoid for Sustainable Living

My first blog on the series of #CauseAChatter by Blogchatter under the #EnvironmentalTalks was Baby steps towards Sustainable Living. While it is easy to read and write about such topics, to really incorporate it as a lifestyle, takes a huge level of commitment from self and the ability to lead by example. This will help to positively impact our circle of influence to follow our lead, especially when we have members from two or three generations (older or younger). 

While it took us a few years to instill these concepts in all our family members, we did start our journey with the #NeedvsWant discussions at home. Any buying decision being considered, big or small, including the weekly grocery list and vegetables, always went through this filter. This has become so much a part of our lives that even our children use this for validating their wish list! When you do not buy in excess or something that may not be used at all, then the waste generated automatically reduces at source, thereby doing our part in contributing towards maintaining a healthy environment for our future generations. 

Here are four habits on how to achieve sustainable living and helping to potentially reduce waste generation at source:

Unplanned Shopping

Planning, and sticking to the plan as much as possible under any circumstances helps to keep our expense pattern and our purchase pattern under our control, which in turn results in lesser waste generation as we are anyway buying only what we need and will use.

• Always have a shopping list and try not to deviate from this list. 
• Make the shopping list after taking stock of what you have at home. Only include the necessities on the list. 
• When you have an urge to shop any additional items, evaluate the #NeedvsWant e.g. you can add an additional snack that your children may enjoy, but not overstock them.

Stress Shopping

I have had some of my friends call me for a day out shopping as a stress relief activity. This, I think, is an extremely costly and ineffective way to relieve stress. There are more efficient and effective methods of stress relief that include, exercise, practicing mindfulness (processing emotions, meditation), Yoga, gardening, and many more. 

Shopping is never a stress-buster activity. When it is for just the necessities, it contributes towards reduced waste generation at source and is light on our finances as well. 

A good alternative to stress shopping could be window shopping (no actual purchases) or moving items to an online Wishlist (instead of the shopping cart) to be reconsidered later. These are only temporary fixes. The best would be to work on addressing the root cause of the stress and completely remove it.

Extravagant Shopping

Buying items to keep the projected image of a social stature is another fallacy that would weigh heavily on our finances as well as the waste of resources and probably contribute to higher waste creation. The status definers, like trends, keep changing quite frequently, and keeping up with it might eventually even add to the stress in your life. 

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) should never be a driver for shopping. If you shop to stay in trend, understand that in the current times, trends change every day, sometimes twice in a single day. When we base our purchase decisions to stay in line with trends, we will always be part of a game of catch-up, wasting our time, money, and resources and still not be in trend more often. All the ‘out of trend’ items pile onto the waste / useless stuff. 

Indulgent Shopping 

I fail to see the difference between this and stress shopping, but I have had advice coming my way that I should sometimes indulge myself in shopping to treat myself. I have never seen a point to this, especially when this indulgent behaviour is only a temporary fix to any problem or a mere few minutes/hours of happiness. In the long run, you will probably regret the decision of purchase, especially when it gets added to the growing pile of unused items. 

My way of indulging is different, I guess. For me, anything to do with mindfulness and sustainability is to indulge. I enjoy finding new ways to positively contribute to my family’s cost-saving and waste reduction effort, and try and do my bit towards positively impacting the society at large as well.

We aren’t Minimalistic

I wouldn’t categorise ourselves at minimalistic standards. Our conscious choices on purchase decisions indulging in Need vs Want debates have made our buying pattern moderate. This helped especially during the pandemic lockdown times as we were always aware of what was needed for our family, what was available in our stock, and when we needed to replenish them by how much. 

This enables us, as a family, to stay away from panic buying and judiciously work with the available stock till we could add more to it when we were allowed to. Lockdown restrictions only meant adjusting to the store timings rather than feeling constricted or afraid that we would not have enough.

I hope that these not-so-healthy shopping practices that we learned to tackle over the years would serve as a starting point of your self-explorative journey towards sustainable shopping habits that can also contribute to a better and healthy environment (by saving on resources and reducing waste generation at source) & better use of our personal finances. 

This post is part of Blogchatter's #CauseAChatter - #EnvironmentalTalks

Baby Steps Towards Sustainable Living

2019 marked the ban of single-use plastics followed by waste segregation at source as a Government initiative in many states. In our gated community in Chennai, we decided to create a task force for the same. The task force was responsible for strategizing the various methods of execution of this Government directive at the community level and individual residents’ level. While waste segregation is one aspect of waste management, the fundamental aspect of it is understanding of the 3 R’s – Reduce, Reuse & Recycle

With sustainability practices gaining the needed attention in recent times to combat the climate change threat, awareness around waste management has increased as well. There are many surveys and articles on the Internet that highlight the volumes of waste that are generated worldwide and the damage that it contributes to the planet Earth. While Government can strategize and launch various initiatives to deal with this menace, it is paramount that we as individuals do our part in implementing them, starting from our own homes. 

How do you Reduce?

Let me share with you what I did (with my spouse’s support) as a lifestyle choice in my home. Any time there is a buying decision being considered, including the weekly grocery list and vegetables for home, the one pivoting point for the buying decision is always #NeedvsWant. This is what drives every buying decision in our home, even the children are now able to use this for their wish list! I wouldn’t categorise us at minimalistic standards, but our moderate buying has been quite effective for at least a few years now, even before the Covid19-induced lockdown initiated this process for many. For us, the lockdown only meant adjusting to the store timings rather than feeling constricted. Here are a few tips on how we achieved this:

• We always have a shopping list and rarely do we deviate from the list. 
• Shopping is never a stress buster. Even if this is true for some, I would urge that, purchase decisions while shopping, should not be under duress (FOMO – Fear of missing out), but a conscious and evaluated decision based on need vs want. Window shopping or moving items an online Wishlist (instead of the shopping cart) can be alternatives, if you are a compulsive shopper, though I would recommend that you work on addressing the root cause of what is stressing you in the first place to remove stress from life rather than going on a shopping spree
• Status symbols were never a motivator for our buying decisions. 
• Indulgent shopping is also something we never subscribed to.

What do we Reuse?

The benefit of reusing can be seen in reduction as well and contributes automatically to cost savings as well. 

• We have had multiple relocations and where we could, we reused our old functional furniture and fixtures with no replacements. 
• We also use the plastic bottles from the kitchen as a makeshift pot for seeds/plants, DIY pencil/pen stands. 
• Old worn clothes get upcycled as wash clothes for cleaning the kitchen counter, tables, fans, appliances, and mirrors. This has helped in reducing the purchase of paper kitchen towels and tissues.
• I make stripes from them that are used as make-shift ropes when needed. It has been a while since I stopped buying ropes and zip-tie to hold things in place. 

How can we Recycle?

As a practice, we have different bins inside our home, and everyone knows what kind of waste goes into which bins. There is one bin just for plastics and one for papers. These are then given to the wastepaper person in exchange for money. Money so earned goes into the kitty of want. When we can save enough to satisfy a specific reasonable want that all of us agree upon, this money is used.  

We also have a wet waste bin that only collects kitchen waste that can be converted into organic compost. 

What do I achieve by doing all this?

The personal satisfaction that I am doing my share to reduce the waste generation and thereby impacting the waste management process positively and contributing to keeping the environment a little less polluted. I also bring ‘cost saving’ due to the reduction and recycling that I have implemented as a practice in my home. With simple reusing methods, I further reduce the generation of waste from my home, thereby doing my bit towards the green revolution. 

Added to all this, we also have a home garden and the water that is removed from our fish tank is used to water the plants thereby recycling water as well. The plants also get natural manure from this water as it is rich with fish excreta. Growing kitchen vegetables as part of our home garden, we also benefit from ‘garden to fork’ produce and enjoy a fresh, tasty meal without the fear of pesticides and chemicals, occasionally.  

I am hoping that as you finish reading this, you have been able to take some practical pointers on what you can implement in your life to develop sustainable practices that will not only benefit the environment but will immensely be satisfying for you personally as well for being a positive contributor to personal and financial well-being as well as the environment.

This post is part of Blogchatter's #CauseAChatter - Environmental Talks