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E-mail Activism

5 Ways to Volunteer in Your Own Time

Posted on August 15, 2022July 21, 2022

When I talk about volunteering with someone, people usually think of organizations where they can do something. Think of the food bank, the animal shelter or a local school. That’s great and I’ll soon write something about those options. However, you can also do something on your own terms. This way you’re not bound to specific times. There’s a lot we can do without these organizations. Today I’ll tell you about 5 ways to volunteer in your own time.

Eco-neutral first

Volunteering is amazing. I will always encourage it. However, it’s not where I would recommend anyone to start if they want to make the world a better place. Step one is always to focus on yourself. Take only your fair share of this planet and make sure to live within the earth’s boundaries and start an eco-neutral lifestyle. You simply cannot help others if you’re taking a slice of the pie that’s too big in my opinion. Once you’ve established that, you can look at an eco-positive lifestyle. Want to know how I did that? Read about my journey towards an eco-positive lifestyle here, here, here and here.

Time

As I said, volunteering at a physical organizations can be great. However, not everybody has the time or ability to leave their home to do some volunteering. But that doesn’t mean you cannot do anything. There’s a lot we can do in our own time. Here are 5 ways to volunteer in your own time:

1 E-mail activism

I dedicated an entire blogpost to e-mail activism. With e-mail activism I basically mean sending e-mail to companies and organizations to ask them to change something. A few examples. You can e-mail schools, asking them to boycott zoos on their school trips. Or asking restaurants to put one vegan option on their menu. Or asking organizations to make their entrance accessible to wheelchairs. The options ate endless. By simply sending an e-mail (which can even be done anonymously) you can raise awareness, start a conversation and maybe even change something.

2 Spreading Online Awareness

This one is similar to e-mail activism. But here the focus lies on social media and websites. I have a love-hate relationship with social media and this is the reason, we can use for something good. An example is to comment to influencer’s post when they promote eating animal products, flights or fast fashion. You can try to educate them by commenting simple facts. This way they see it, but their followers too. I personally do this by commenting on the social media posts from zoos, to inform people who follow zoos on why they’re unethical. The possibilities are endless online. If you want to do this on your own website or social media this is also great, but I think the reach is smaller.

3 trash picking

Okay, so those were the online things. But there are also things you can do offline, in your own time. The first one is trash picking. This prevents nature from suffering due to the pollution and it sets a great example. Trash picking can also be combined with other activities. I have done it a lot while walking our dog Darco and some people do it while jogging (which I would not enjoy at all, but maybe you will). This creates a win-win in terms of time. I would say that it’s also essential to try and live as zero waste as possible yourself too, to also tackle the root of the trash problem.

4 Education on The Street

I have to be honest here, this one takes a lot of gut. And willingness. You can always protest and inform people on your own, in your own time. It’s completely legal to protest at a store or organization (alone, with more than one person you’ll have to ask permission). You can always stand at the entrance of a butcher, cheese store or a company which sells leather to inform them on the horrible practices behind those products.

Showing footage from inside a slaughterhouse is a great example. The same goes for fast fashion, zoos, dolfinaria, stores which sell fur or leather and any other dirty business. But as I said, you have to be very strong for this because people don’t always like to be faced with their behavior’s consequences. If you want to do this in a group, you can do it at Anonymous for the Voiceless, but that’s at a set time and place.

5 Wearing Clothing

Another option which takes some gut. Wearing clothing with quotes or information that makes people think. Great examples are t-shirts or sweaters with the following quotes: ‘before asking me ”why are you vegan?”, ask yourself why you are not’, ‘it’s only one cheap t-shirt, said 8 billion people’ or ‘black lives matter’. The possibilities are endless, so choose whatever you like. There’s only one important thing: buy these things secondhand and if that’s really not possible, go for a sustainable and ethical fashion brand. You can also buy a secondhand t-shirt and make the quote on it yourself. But beware: people might not be happy with you confronting them. Beware for rude people. The choice is up to you.

In your own time

These were 5 ways to volunteer in your own time. These are things you can do anytime, which is perfect if you have a tight schedule or a schedule that changes a lot. Soon I’ll write about other options of volunteering as well. For now, this is it.

Do you know any more ways to volunteer in your own time?

Yours sincerely,
Romee

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ABOUT ME

 

when a teen goes green

Hi! My name is Romee Hoeksma and I am on a journey to an eco-positive life. An eco-positive lifestyle is a lifestyle in which I have a more positive than negative impact on the beautiful planet earth. On this blog you can follow my journey to a life with only positive impact. At this blog you can find all sorts of things, from tips to recipes to personal experiences, but most of all fun (I hope!). I write about how I want to change the world, but don’t look at it as if I’m judging you. If anything, I like responses from my dear readers the most, so don’t hesitate to contact me or respond to any of my posts!

Yours sincerely,
Romee

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Dit is hoe ik met de trein van Krásná Lípa (🇨🇿) naar Bratislava (🇸🇰) reisde. Dit was reisdag 3/6 van onze duurzame interrail reis. Ik ben vandaag 25 jaar geworden 🥳. Ik hoop heel hard dat dat betekent dat ik ongeveer op een kwart van mijn leven ben. En wat een verjaardag is dit! Ik mag het vieren in Kopenhagen met mijn favoriete persoon @casperchristiaanse , terwijl ik met de trein door Europa reis 🚃. Ik ben een gelukkig mens. Op naar de 50! Dit is hoe ik van Dresden (🇩🇪) naar Krásná Lípa (🇨🇿) reisde. Niet een bijster lange, maar wel een prachtige treinreis, omdat je door het nationaal park Boheems Zwitserland gaat. Dit was de tweede reisdag van onze interrail (2/6). We zijn op de helft van de interrail. Terwijl ik dit typ zijn we onderweg naar Warschau (8,5 uur vanaf Bratislava). Nog twee bestemmingen te ontdekken, maar wat hebben we nu al veel genoten. Elke dag goed en lang slapen, nieuw vegan eten proberen, bijzonder lang wandelen, spelletjes spelen, weinig schermtijd, genieten van de mooie uitzichten en zon: deze reis is genieten 💜. Dit is hoe ik met de trein van Amsterdam naar Dresden reisde 🚃. De interrail is officieel begonnen! (1/6) Vandaag verschijnt er geen artikel op mijn blog. En de komende twee weken hierna ook niet. Dat is voor het eerst, in de 7 jaar dat ik schrijf. Een heel leuk onderdeel van duurzaam leven is tweedehands kleding. Hier zijn 4 tweedehands outfits die ik droeg in augustus 2023 🌞. Je zag het al in de reel van vorige week: ik ben op vakantie geweest naar Gent, in België. Het was een ontzettende aanrader, en daarom verscheen er vandaag een artikel op mijn blog over de leukste en duurzaamste hotspots in Gent 🌆. Check it out via de link in mijn bio Gent, wat was je prachtig 🌆. Dit is absolute een duurzame vakantietip (oh, maar wees niet zo naïef als ik en ga lekker met de trein 🚃). Binnenkort is op Youtube de gehele vakantievlog te bekijken.

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