Volunteers

Friday the 5th of December 2008 was International Volunteers’ Day (established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1985.) So the Richardson Support House decided to hold a special celebration dinner to thank all those who volunteered this year. Since we opened in August, several people have offered assistance - people have helped us move in, worked in the yard, painted the building, did library or administration work, worked on community development, provided counselling to the community and much more. We are so very grateful for their support.

ACT Critical Incident Stress Management Information Service Inc. is staffed entirely by volunteers. They have a room at Richardson Support House for their public research library. The library has articles and books on stress, stress management, trauma and disaster recovery.

So, there are many organisations in Australia that benefit from the good will and hard work of volunteers. The Australian Bureau of Statistics survey of Voluntary Work in 2006 indicated that 5.4 million Australian adults (34% of the population) do voluntary work each year.

Many newspaper articles note that volunteering has a positive effect on stress and depression. Many general Stress Management books also recommend volunteering for this reason. For example Coping with Stress by Gwen K. Packard (Coping with Stress 1999) writes that volunteer work has many advantages. It gives volunteers a chance to think about something other than events causing them stress, it builds self esteem because they are helping the community and/or people in need, it can keep people from getting bored, they can meet new friends, or learn new things.

There are several studies that support this idea that volunteering has positive benefits for people. A survey conducted by the UK organisation Community Service Volunteers of over 600 volunteers found that 71% thought volunteering helped combat depression (CSV and Barclay’s 29 September 2004). Over half the respondents also indicated it alleviated personal stress.

Best wishes from the Richardson Support House Team.