Volunteer Story - Anna Yanga

I am Anna Yanga and I am originally from the Philippines. I started my volunteering journey since I was in highschool in the Philippines. I first got involved with our school's Alay Pag-ibig (Sharing Love) Centre when I was 13 and I would spend time playing and tutoring some of the least privileged children in our community every Saturday morning. I also got involved with peer counseling & tutoring where I would spend my breaks at school listening to our schoolmates who were having some struggles in life or tutoring other students who were having a hard time learning. I also used to get involved in other outreach programmes from high school til when I was at uni -- like visiting elderlies at a home for the aged and children at orphanages, feeding & teaching some streetchildren, and organising medical & dental mission in the community.

Back in Auckland, I got involved with organising an academic home tutoring programme for the refugee children until I got pregnant then I had to focus on looking after my own family for a while.

Currently, I am a Roots of Empathy volunteer instructor and I get to facilitate sessions in classes to help children grow their emotional literacy, interpersonal skills and, of course, empathy. Next term, I will be facilitating a new parenting course at Life Church Timaru called Parents With Courage as I got to help with facilitating Kids With Courage last year and I found it to be very helpful so I thought it will be great to do something similar for parents as well.

I find volunteering to be so valuable. There are many, many important works to be done in our society where paid roles are not available but they need to be done. For me, volunteering is so rewarding even if I don't receive any financial or material compensation at all. With every volunteering work that I have done, I could find at least one person being uplifted or one life being enriched, and myself learning something new about me and finding deep & meaningful friendships. I love it that whenever I volunteer, I find myself in a community working together then I get to discover my natural strengths and the areas in my life that still need improvement. Volunteering has helped me grow as a person and find precious friendships. And these are more important to me -- sharing my time and my life without counting the cost at all.