How Has Technology Changed Volunteering?

In this day and age the use of technology in our lives has taken a gargantuan leap. We Google everything, we remain in touch with our near and dear ones via technology, shopping online, dating online, almost everything happens online. Naturally, technology has also had an impact on volunteering, but how? We’ll attempt to answer this question in this piece.

Before you go for volunteering, it is vital that you do the essential amount of research beforehand. You need to look through the wide variety of options which are available to you in term of prices, type of volunteer programs and program locations. With the internet so effortlessly accessible to us, it is now so easy to pick out the best opportunity for oneself. In addition to this, once you have made all your volunteering arrangements, you can also look up different activities to do for when reach your destination at the click of a button. Something which was simply a distant dream a few decades ago.

While you are travelling to your volunteering destination, it is good to have a form of entertainment to keep you busy on your journey. And as reading isn’t for everyone, there is an array of technological entertainment to choose from. From handheld devices like aNintendo DS, to game apps on your phone like Flappy Bird, or Candy Crush Saga – you can bid adieu to boredom.

When you arrive at your volunteering destination, and especially if doing so in a foreign country where you are not acquainted with the local language, you will be very wary of getting to the right places and not getting lost. This is where a GPS, or a GPS app on your phone will come in very handy. Whichever part of the world you are in, technology in this case is very beneficial for volunteering in an unfamiliar location.

Whilst you are volunteering you may want to tell your friends about what you have done that day, or communicate with your family back home if you’re feeling homesick. Using technology for communication makes volunteering abroad feel as if you’re still right at home with easy access to countries all around the world!

On top of this, if you want to bring about awareness to the amazing charity you have been volunteering with and you want to do more to help, you can simply spread the word globally online, with social networking sites and campaign websites speedily accessible at your fingertips.

You’ve had a fantastic volunteering experience, and you don’t ever want to forget the spectacular time you’ve had. So what do you do?  With cameras, and even the camera on your phone, you can now record every single moment of your marvelous time with one click of a button. Your memories will be forever stored so you can look back on them forever more.  You can also keep in contact with the people you’ve met whilst volunteering through technological mediums, so you will never forget them and can always go back and discuss the wonderful times that you spent together.

Technology has eased and increased the quality of ‘the volunteering experience’ for volunteers. Access to information, entertainment sources, social media forums,and recording devices have addressed almost all the woes of volunteers, country hosts, and even the people for whom the volunteering is being done for.

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