Volunteering involves the investment of own spare time to grow as a person, not for having a mention in the CV. It is rather an attempt to build a community around an idea. The founder of the portal diez.md Alexandru Lebedev related his own volunteering experience in an informal meeting with young volunteers, IPN reports.

Alexandru Lebedev became a volunteer when he was a high school student. In time, he worked for a number of volunteer organizations and projects. “The people often devote their time to unserious things, but this counts for our inner state,” he stated. After he was chosen to go to the UK for an exchange of experience, while volunteering as a teacher of English, he returned home and decided to return that good that was done to him.

Alexandru Lebedev said he does not believe in artificial volunteering. “There is a period in life when we test different types of volunteering. You test what you want to do for yourself, when you decide you want to change the world and do good things. It is hard to change the world when you take nothing with you because the more you take with you, the more you give,” he stated.

Another experienced volunteer Nata Andreev, coordinator of events and communication at the American Resource Center, said she worked as a volunteer before the started work for the U.S Government and she had her first experience abroad. There, she realized what volunteering really is, while working for an animal shelter and a center for people with HIV/AIDS and participating in different activities at school.

Martina Kamencova came to Moldova from the Czech Republic within an exchange project to do volunteering. She said her stay here is a nice and useful experience. “When I saw pictures of Moldova, these scared me, but I said that I will not take pictures of those places, but will visit them when I reach Moldova. And it wasn’t as bad. I was scared because I didn’t know the country. The people are different in Moldova and I think they smile not much here and this is slightly hard for me. But the people here are very open and helpful when you need assistance,” stated Martina Kamencova.

Maria Ceban, 17, said she has worked as a volunteer for almost a year. After she was accepted as a volunteer at Hospice Angelus, she took part in a number of events, including as part of other organizations. She said all those events are a very nice memory for her. They helped her improve her English and grow. She understood that in the future she wants to work in an area that involves the helping of people.

The event “Volunteer stories” forms part of the events staged within the National Volunteer Week 2017.