Section 2

Section 2.

You will hear a woman talking to a group of college students about volunteering to help other people.

First you have some time to look at questions 11 to 14.

Now listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 14.

Good morning, my name’s Lucy Crittenden and I’m the director of operations for an organization that arranges volunteering in this part of the country.

I’m hoping I can persuade one or two of you to become volunteers yourselves, let me start by briefly explaining what we mean by volunteering.

Volunteers are teenagers and adults who choose to spend some time unpaid helping other people in some way, most volunteers devote two or three hours to this every week while a few do much more.

The people they help may have physical or behavioral difficulties for example.

Volunteers can do all sorts of things depending on their own abilities and interests.

If they’re supporting a family that’s struggling for example, they may be able to give them tips on cooking or recommend how to plan their budget or how to shop sensibly on their income.

They might even do some painting or wallpapering perhaps alongside any members of the family who were able to do it .

Or even do some babysitting so the parents can go out for a while.

The benefit from volunteering isn’t only for the people being helped.

Volunteers also gain from it they’re using their skills to cope with somebody’s mental or physical ill health and volunteering may be a valuable element of their CV when they’re applying for jobs.

Employers usually look favorably on someone who’s given up time to help others.

Significantly most volunteers feel that what they’re doing gives them a purpose in their lives and in my opinion they’re lucky in that respect, as many people don’t have that feeling.

Before you the rest of the talk you have some time to look at questions 15 to 20.

Now listen and answer questions 15 to 20.

Now I’d like to tell you what some of our volunteers have said about what they do, to give you an idea of the range of ways in which they can help people.

Habib, supports an elderly lady who’s beginning to show signs of dementia, once a week they along with other elderly people go to the local community center where a group of people come in and sing, the songs take the listeners back to their youth and for a little while they can forget the difficulties that they face now.

A volunteer Consuela is an amazing woman she has difficulty walking herself, but she doesn’t let that stop her, she helps a couple of people with similar difficulties who had almost stopped walking all together.

By using herself as an example Consuela encourages them to walk more and more.

Min visits a young man who lives alone and can’t leave his home on his own so he hardly ever saw anyone, but together they go out to the cinema or to see friends the young man hadn’t been able to visit for a long time.

Tania visits an elderly woman once a week, when the woman found out that Tania is a professional dressmaker she got interested.

Tania showed her some soft toys she’d made and the woman decided to try it herself, and now she really enjoys it and spends hours making toys.

They’re not perhaps up to Tonya’s standard yet but she gains a lot of pleasure from doing it.

Alexi is a volunteer with a family that faces a number of difficulties, by calmly talking over possible solutions with family members he’s helping them to realize that they aren’t helpless and that they can do something themselves to improve their situation.

This has been great for their self-esteem.

And the last volunteer I’ll mention, though there are plenty more is Juba.

She volunteers with a teenage girl with learning difficulties who wasn’t very good at talking to other people Juba’s worked very patiently with her and now the girl is far better at expressing herself and at understanding other people.

Okay, I hope that’s given you an idea of what volunteering is all about now I’d like to talk to you about.

That is the end of section 2 you now have half a minute to check your answers.

Now turn to section 3