Profile of a Volunteer

Kieff (2009) talked about volunteerism as a form of advocacy, and although I have never really seen volunteers that way, I am developing a shift in my paradigm of a volunteer and an advocate. Louise Sparks-Derman (Laureate Education, 2010) defined an advocate as someone who speaks for the voiceless. So, even if you were a volunteer helping the unfortunate, you are advocating as well especially for the voiceless. It was interesting to me that I have volunteered through a wide variety of settings: short-term, long-term, team, family, and direct. I have not volunteered in a virtual way yet, but an opportunity might present itself some day soon.

Today, I am a volunteer advocate for both a service-oriented and advocacy-oriented nonprofits (Kieff, 2009). Through my involvement as a volunteer advocate in both organizations, I have learned from others more seasoned than me. Learning from the master advocates has helped me improve my advocacy skills. The following definition describes what the two volunteer masters that I try to emulate have done:

Volunteering is the voluntary giving of time and talents to deliver services or perform tasks with no direct financial compensation expected. Volunteering includes the participation of citizens in the direct delivery of service to others; citizen action groups; advocacy for causes, groups, or individuals; participation in the governance of both private and public agencies; self-help and mutual aid endeavors; and a broad range of informal helping activities (President’s Task Force on Private Sector Initiatives, 1982 as cited in Cnaan et al 1996).

Furthermore, the following definition more narrowly describes why they volunteer:

To volunteer is to choose to act in recognition of a need, with an attitude of social responsibility and without concern for monetary profit, going beyond one’s basic obligations (Ellis and Noyes, 1990 as cited in Cnaan et al 1996).

They always recognize a need and drum up support to address the need, usually about Deaf children and their families. They advocate for the individual family, for the community, and to leave the world a better place than they found it.

I feel lucky to know these two women, Sheri Farinha and Julie Rems Smario.

References

Cnaan, R.A., Handy, F., & Wadsworth, M. (September 1996). Defining who is a volunteer: Conceptual and empirical considerations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly vol. 25 no. 3 364-383. Retrieved from: http://nvs.sagepub.com/content/25/3/364.full.pdf+html doi: 10.1177/0899764096253006

Kieff, J. (2009). Informed advocacy in early childhood care and education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Laureate Education, Inc. (2010) The passion for early childhood. Baltimore: Author

Using Social Media to Get Connected

I initially started using Facebook because that was one of some ways I could keep up with my children’s lives when they went off to college.  Either they would have to write weekly letters home or allow me to be their Friend! My children made right decisions!

Since that time, I have come to enjoy Facebook benefits along with its disadvantages. There is a lot of political and advocacy discourses on Facebook from which I formulate my thoughts and actions. I only wish that I were savvy at utilizing all of the social media in a way that all of these contribute to my advocacy efforts.

I have Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram accounts, and I don’t use them much. Friends tell me that they use one or the other, but usually not all of them together. I have seen how my colleagues have adeptly utilized all of them together to promote their causes, and I am still learning how to do so.  Instead of leading as an advocate, I am a great follower. That’s different from trolling!

I have seen first hand the power of social media advocacy where people change their minds. I have seen how some people more adeptly utilize social media to create new ideas.

One thing that I thoroughly enjoy and have been trying to set up is a blog. Maybe when I finish my graduate studies, I can devote more energies to my blog which will allow me to create more influence steps through twitter, and YouTube.

All of this is hard work and takes time; time is something I don’t have much as long as I am in graduate program and working full time. I dream of mastering social media advocacy some day!

Advocacy Messages

“A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste.”

It is an advocacy campaign to solicit donations for United Negro College Fund (UNCF) so they can send minority students to college. It is indeed sad when minority students are unable to attend college because of cost. We all value our brain/minds; and when we do not help to send minority students to college, their talents or gifts are lost.

(http://www.adcouncil.org/Our-Campaigns/Education/Supporting-Minority-Education)

Teach Well. Explore Solutions. Develop Expertise…Change Lives

There was an advertisement for a university graduate/doctoral program that was on Council for Exceptional Children website. I like it, and thought that the teacher/advocate in this class would appreciate the message. This message promotes the idea that to change children’s lives, you would need to learn to teach well, willing to explore solutions, and thus develop expertise.

(https://www.cec.sped.org/)

My Own Capacity

People who know me know my passion lies in language acquisition, prevention of language delays/deprivation, and literacy. I was a co-founder of Alliance for Language and Literacy for Deaf Children (ALL for Deaf Children) in the 1990s to provide families with opportunities to interact with other families with Deaf children and thus creating a small village.

I seem to have skills in assessing issues and determining how we can and should fix the inequalities or inequities. I feel blessed to have an ability to write about such issues and have people understand what I am trying to say. I also have some cross-cultural skills that enable me to understand the other points of views.

Internet is probably the best resource I have at my fingertips! Other resources I have at my disposal are other equally passionate advocates who share my vision for healthy language development for all Deaf children. We boost and support each other’s advocacy work.

I need to develop patience and realization that nothing happens overnight. I also need to become more focused on smaller objectives and getting them accomplished. Ultimately, those small objectives will accomplish the major goal.

My Role as an Advocate

In one of my classes, Early Childhood Systems, we were asked to write a blog describing what about early childhood public policy and advocacy that resonate with me. I wrote that Louise Sparks-Derman (Laureate Education, 2011) defined advocate as someone who speaks for the voiceless. I further wrote that she said, “…that the preschool years are critical; they are the first, most fundamental period where children are in fact noticing who they are and are noticing the attitudes of the stereotypes and the discomforts…that the teachers have a tremendous influence on their self-identities.”  She (Laureate Education, Inc. 2010) also believes that we need “to fix the injustices that existed in the world.”  Renatta M. Cooper (Laureate Education, Inc. 2010) commented, “I see early childhood education, all education, really, as a civil rights issue.”

The issues outlined by Louise Sparks-Derman and Renatta M. Cooper were intended for all of the children. Those issues are doubly more important for Deaf children who have normal capabilities to achieve but only if they have access to a full and visible language. That’s my motivation – to ensure that all Deaf children have equal opportunities to achieve all they can and want to in life.

To achieve this goal, I would need to be engaged on the macro level as we have discussed in the past couple of weeks. Engaging in developing public policies that would have positive outcomes for deaf children would be some of the macro activities. Many of those families would and could benefit from micro involvement from early childhood professionals. That could be language intervention services for the families; or accompanying a family with a Deaf child to a Deaf social event to ensure acculturation process for the family.

It would be difficult to find a community leader that would possess all of the important characteristics of an advocate. Hence, the community leader must have the ability to put together a group of advocates with certain skills that would complement each other. The community leader would also have excellent communication and listening skills. The community leader is a collaborator of all essential stakeholders like parents, early childhood professionals, advocacy groups, state/federal government entities, and legislators.

When our advocacy group has specific tasks, we ask those whom we know have particular skills to help. Usually, they get inspired to stay involved.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (2010) The passion for early childhood. Baltimore: Author