Get active

Learning Objectives

• Understanding how becoming active in the society can help the self-esteem and self-affirmation
• Exploring various opportunities to become active and volunteer
• Understanding the benefits of activism for future carrier

Materials Needed

Present to the participants that becoming active around certain cause gives you a sense of purpose. By becoming active and volunteering, you are helping the community and making a difference to something other than yourself. It gives you something meaningful to be doing, and it is empowering to be doing something that really does matter. It’s an opportunity for people interaction. Getting together with others around the cause is a great way to meet new people and practice social interaction. It doesn’t matter whether you interact with one person or a group of people. It is particularly beneficial if you’re feeling isolated, want to build your social skills or build your confidence around people. It’s also an opportunity to make new friends. It takes the focus away from yourself. Focusing on something else distracts your mind from the negative thoughts about yourself. Being in the outside world also helps to give you a sense of perspective. It helps with your sense of belonging. When you are active, people will generally be happy to have you around.

You can learn new skills and gain experience. It’s empowering to learn something new, and you could gain valuable skills to use elsewhere. For example, volunteering might provide you with work experience and it get help you get a job. It’s also an opportunity to try out a new hobby or activity. It can give you a sense of achievement. Being active for a cause you believe in is a wonderful thing to do and an achievement in itself. It can be fun and can give you good feelings. There are so many activities that you can do and volunteering can be very rewarding.

Start a brainstorming with the group asking them about causes they believe in:e.g. animal rights, homelessness, environment, etc. List all these potential causes, and after 10 minutes ask participants to split into smaller groups based on the general interest clusters. (There will be probably clusters of issues, such as environment, animal rights, poverty, refugee issues, etc.). Each group will have a task to explore the ways in how they can become active and fight for this issue. They can create their own campaign, street activity or join already existing movement. Ask them to prepare their own presentation of the steps they want to take and change they want to achieve. After 30 minutes ask the groups to present their ideas and steps.