Teach them right, teach them early: Benefits of involving kids in community service

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 Education integrates community service in its list of extracurricular activities for one important reason: it is vital in character building. If children are taught to volunteer at an early age, helping out may just become permanently ingrained in their characters—probably so much that it eventually becomes central to their being. If this will carry on, it can instigate a domino effect, hopefully resulting to a society where all individuals freely pay forward to achieve that utopian pipedream that remains to be ever elusive.

Because the road toward this goal is no walk in the park, schools have taken it upon themselves to help out in this mission. In recent years, they have adopted methods by which they can introduce the art of community service to students. Community service directors like Sharon Younkin and Noreen Wiedenfeld realize that by teaching students how to give back to the community at an early age, the following benefits may be reaped in the long haul:

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 • Children develop a sense of responsibility. When kids volunteer, they are able to learn what it means to make and maintain commitments. Because they are also held against certain rules in the conduct of volunteering, they can also learn to be on time for an activity, gun for the best results, and take pride in their achievements. Above all, however, children learn to recognize an individual’s role and worth in the overall well-being of communities.

• Children discover the benefits of sacrifice. Because doing volunteer work is not all roses, children get to realize that sacrifice is part and parcel in any endeavor to achieve a desired goal. Reducing play time to accommodate community service teaches them that there are more significant things besides themselves and their immediate needs.

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 • Children develop tolerance. By immersing themselves into working with different people, they learn to get along with others regardless of creed, race, and orientation. At some point, they will realize that even the most dissimilar individuals may be united by common values.

• Children acquire requisite job skills. Exposure into the real world can give children an idea of prospective career opportunities, and by being able to work within their niche of interest, they are able to acquaint themselves to the responsibilities and skills required of those interested to pursue them.

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 • Children use idle time wisely. Instead of slacking around and engaging in unproductive activities, community service can be an exciting, if not totally wonderful, alternative.

Paying back to the community is not an easy task, but with the guidance of the right people, it may actually succeed in bringing about the desired changes.

The following Facebook page provides more information on Sharon Younkin’s community service advocacies.

Budding physicians, budding community servants

Without a doubt, community service is part and parcel in the myriad of existing physician responsibilities. For what else do physicians work for than the benefit of the immediate community wherein they are presently based? The services rendered by physicians are but basic services to individuals and to the community. The quality of such would eventually reflect on one’s public relations, such as the history of medicine so attests.

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Throughout the years, however, there has been a disturbing deterioration in physician-community public relations. Coincidentally, this was in the time of an unprecedented rise in the scientific achievements in the field. This paradigm shift toward a more scientific understanding and practice of medicine has, perhaps, caused the all-important personal relationship with the community to be overshadowed.

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This is where the importance of integrating community service into the medical school curriculum helps. For example, Sharon Younkin, the director of the Community Service Programs at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, coordinates community service activities for medical students and provides them opportunities to practice the knowledge they learned in school to serve those who are underprivileged. This kind of opportunity helps to bring the students closer to the people they are supposed to be working for.

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Even with all the medical advancements happening all around us, at the end of the day, the doctor who thinks of patients as a person with a disease rather than a mere example of a disease builds better rapport with his patients. If the doctor isn’t built to be for the community, then what is his purpose?

Nil. Nada. Nothing.

Sharon Younkin is helping in the formation of future physicians by veering them toward a more community-based practice. Learn more about her work by following this Twitter account.