I have always strongly believed in giving back wherever I can. Volunteering has always been an important part of my life. It started with many school trips going to old age homes or winter food drives or relay for life events. I joined the bushranger cadets in high school where we did numerous environmental volunteer projects including breeding termites for the numbat program at Perth Zoo. Possibly my most memorable event for fundraising was the Leukaemia Shave for a Cure event when I was 16 and had my legs waxed to fundraise!
I spent a very rewarding two years as a outdoor guide helping people develop themselves by providing them with experiences where they needed to overcome difficulties and formulate solutions to problems to be able to achieve their goals for the duration of the course. The idea being that participants could take the knowledge that they were able to overcome these obstacles and use it to achieve the goals they had in their normal life as well.
The other great thing with working as a guide was our ability to give back to the communities we operated out of. The tasks included various activities like conservation work in national parks getting rid of invasive species or helping to complete community projects.
While I’m fortunate to have travelled extensively within Australia, I have never travelled overseas. When Julie talked to me about her wish to travel back to South Africa for a volunteer trip mixed with visiting family, a lot of things fell into place for me.
My Mum was born in South Africa and I still have a number of family members over there. If I was to go, I would be the first of my Grandad’s children or grandchildren to have gone back since they moved to Australia over 40 years ago. I would love to find out more about my families origin there and to retrace the life of my mum and especially my grandad who is unfortunately getting on in years and cannot make the trip with me.
If you can see the value of someone helping to conserve pristine wilderness that can never be replaced as well as giving someone the chance to discover their family roots on an amazing overseas trip then please click on the “donate” button to the right of the blog and give whatever you feel you can. Anything is appreciated and if you donate enough we will even get your name/business name into the trip photos!
