The notion of doing ‘’CV-worthy’’ work experience and extracurricular activities during your uni degree can become a constant open tab in many students’ minds.
You want to take real action for a more sustainable world but you don’t have enough time while you study. While you would love to help, you already study, work part-time, work out, have a social life and need to be skill-building for your future career. The answer? Strategically volunteer in areas you can grow your skills in organisations that work with your green passions like living sustainably, conservation, fighting climate change or protecting wildlife.
Don’t forget it takes a lot of varied skills to run any organisation. Just because an organisation works with mobilising volunteers to clean up beaches, plant trees or care for orphaned animals does not mean that’s what you have to do there. These organisations often have business arms, councils or boards. The bigger they are or even the leaner they run, there will likely be volunteer opportunities to work within HR, law, finance, taxes, administration, community building, communications, marketing, social media, research, event coordination, grant/fundraising, coding, designing, policy, governance and more. The options are quite limitless depending on what the organisation does. You could likely also combine lending a helping hand with gaining corporate experience too.
3 green organisations to look into this uni break:
- Australian Youth Climate Coalition
The AYCC is one of Australia’s largest youth-run organisations on a mission to build a movement of young people leading solutions to the climate crisis. The AYCC runs online Zoom Welcome meetings where you can learn how to get involved. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island students may also be interested in learning about Seed – Australia’s first Indigenous youth climate network, which is a branch within AYCC.
- Curtin Environmental Action Network
Tackling climate change at the local level the CEAN is your on-campus ´community for Curtin students who are interested in taking action on climate change and pursuing environmental initiatives. CEAN helps like-minded students to connect and stay updated on events, protests, beach clean-ups, petitions or just reducing the single-use plastics in your daily life. Join the group’s Facebook group and check out the Curtin Guild’s Sustainability webpage for Guild initiatives and recommend resources for taking action.
- WA Parks and Wildlife Service
Parks and Wildlife Service runs volunteer projects across WA including scientific research, community education and maintenance of the State’s fauna and flora.
Bonus – volunteering hubs to check out:
- Curtin Volunteers: Curtin’s student-driven volunteering hub doing exciting things across Western Australia. There is an environmental section.
- Seek volunteer: Environment & Conservation volunteer opportunities in Perth and surrounding areas.
- Volunteering Australia is the national body for volunteering, working to advance volunteering in the Australian community. They have a search engine for opportunities called Go Volunteer.
We hope you will be inspired to take environmental action while working in your own area of expertise. This article is the final part of our Sustainability Month series, which highlights sustainability initiatives in and around campus in the lead-up to the Sustainability Challenge intensive that is taking place on campus this week. Check out the whole series:
- 5 things you didn’t know about sustainability at Curtin?
- 22 quick eco-friendly ideas to try in 2022
- Are you waterwise?
- Getting down to zero
