Civic engagement experiences - Essay Example

Civic engagement experiencesIntroductionCivic engagement entails working with an aim of improving the quality of life in the community. Civic engagement can either be individual volunteerism or organisational volunteerism. Basically, civic engagement is voluntarily and no payment for services offered is expected. In essence, it is a way of giving back to the community. A civically responsible person identifies himself or herself as a unit of the community and thus handles social problems as part of him or her.

Actually, civic engagement helps to solve numerous problems encountered by a community. Some challenges of public concern can only be addressed when people volunteer to serve the community (Sherrod, Purta and Flanagan 368). After finishing my secondary education, I joined a community group of twenty youths and was appointed the chairman. The agenda for the group was to make an effort of solving some of the challenges faced by members of the community. The community was ignorant about HIV/AIDS and the overall hygiene level was below average.

As a group we volunteered to organize seminars to educate fellow youths and parents on the causes, effects had how to prevent HIV/ AIDS. We rallied the members of the community to donate funds for supporting the infected persons and the orphaned children. The donated funds helped the orphans to continue with studies and the infected to afford better. Through this campaign, many people learnt the dangers of the diseases. The community acknowledged that AIDS has no cure and it prevention is abstaining from immorality and being faithful in marriage.

As a result, the spread for the disease declined.As a team, we volunteered to sensitize the community on the importance of maintaining proper hygiene. We donated laundry products and clothes to the poor members of the community. We conducted general cleaning in the neighboring towns regularly. Our campaign on proper hygiene, helped to reduce the number of ailments caused by dirty environment such as malaria and typhoid. According to Sherrod, Purta and Flanagan (221), Civic engagement has a lot of benefits to the public.

For instance, it reduces poor relation between members of the public. For instance, in our campaigns against AIDS, we rallied people together to discuss various issues of concern. As people socialize through such discussions they become more united and this reduces social rivalry. Additionally, civic engagement through social work promotes integrity and moral values among the participant. When we engage with others through community service, we acquire leadership skills. Volunteering to offer free service to the public enabled me to learn that people are of different personalities, some are so stubborn and others very cooperative.

In fact, I did not only learn about different people’s personality but also how to handle different people differently. As a leader, one should understand people’s personality. However, civic engagement is faced with some challenges. For instance, some members of public are very uncooperative. Additionally, being a volunteer worker can be very expensive and time consuming.ConclusionCivic engagement is a noble practice that every person should be involved. It is quite unfortunate that most people concentrate too much on their private lives and forget giving back to the society.

People should learn to engage in community work to relief the government some task. Community services require a lot of sacrifice and self drive.Work Cited:Sherrod, Lonnie; Purta, Torney, Flanagan, Constance. Handbook of Research on Civic Engagement in Youth. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons. 2010. Print.