The Colony, by Alexandru Stefan Mazare, student at Gheorghe Vranceanu National College, Bacau
One summer evening while I was walking home, I heard the delightful
sound of the cricket and I remembered the old story about the hard-working ant and the cricket. What if the ant had stopped just a minute from her work and paid the bohemian cricket some attention? He would have survived the harsh winter and might have come to his senses, while the ant would have become an ideal character. This story is also real in the world of humans…
Everyone is busy providing one self the best of all, always thinking about getting more money, and rarely has he time to think about others who are not that fortunate. It is because of ignorance, selfishness or “blindness”. This harmful habit that we have developed must be overcome and one way to achieve it is by volunteering, which can be done individually or within an organisation, as in a colony of ants.
The laziness of the cricket does not show the characteristic of an assisted person. It all depends on the chance you were given in life. There are lots of children who are in need of help and a volunteer can assist them in developing themselves as persons, preparing them for the real life. The elderly can also be helped by the simple fact of communicating, dragging them out of solitude and showing them they have not been forgotten. This shows that the volunteers do not necessarily need money, but a compassionate attitude in order to offer a simple smile for the others’ happiness. Many get a place they can call home, just like an anthill, through the missionary work done in different countries.
The way in which the ant should have cared about the cricket in time, volunteering needs to be done before it is too late. Promptitude shows the people in need that the sun shines for them too, making them more self-confident.
Someone once said: “Give and you’ll be given”. The assisted ones are not the only who are at advantage. Volunteers can learn a lot of things about the reality that surrounds them as well as about themselves, by becoming responsible people. Believe me, I do, because I myself have been experiencing this, being one of the volunteers I am referring to.
Everyone can volunteer, but volunteering should be done from a young age as everyone receives his seven years of education from home and we can extend this into seven years of volunteering from home. The lesson of compassion, help, volunteering is to be taught from early childhood.
The most important aspect that volunteering provides is communication, which is the golden key to social globalization, the utopia we all long for, though we are not aware of it, so volunteering is a primary, important step to be taken for this ideal to happen.
A simple gesture like the one the ant could have made can change the story…
Acest eseu este castigatorul premiului din partea juriului in cadrul 2011 Shakespeare School Essay Competition, grupa de varsta 15-19 ani, ca tema rolul si importanta voluntariatului. Premiul a constat intr-un voucher de reducere pentru o tabara in Anglia oferit de agentia de turism Mirunette International Education, o carte Fischer International, un cadou din partea British Council, un rucsac si alte surprize din partea Reprezentantei Comisiei Europene in Romania si un voucher pentru achizitionarea articolelor sportive din magazinul Puma Cotroceni. Dorim sa il felicitam pe Alexandru pentru faptul ca s-a evidentiat din peste 5100 de eseuri trimise la concursul national de creatie in limba engleza organizat de Shakespeare School si ii uram mult succes in continuare!
