Shivam Shekhawat (MSc in History of International Relations, 2021) volunteered as an alumni mentor for a team of students completing the 2022 edition of the Community Engagement Programme. In this blog, Shivam shares her experience as a volunteer and her continued connection to LSE.
At the beginning of this year, I got an opportunity to mentor a group of LSE students who participated in the second edition of the Community Engagement Programme. An initiative of the LSE Volunteer Centre, the programme is aimed at introducing the students to the world of social impact by putting them in touch with local UK and overseas charities to assist them in tackling the challenges that they are facing.
As volunteer consultants, the students were tasked with the responsibility of preparing a report with recommendations for their respective charities. In my capacity as the mentor, I was responsible for helping the team navigate any difficulties that they faced during the process and to act as a sounding board for their ideas. The programme – lasting three months with a finals event in March – was an extremely fulfilling experience, both personally and professionally.
I graduated from the LSE in the middle of a pandemic, with most months spent in isolation. While I was fortunate enough to be there in London for the duration of my course, there was still a sense of unease about not being able fully to connect with the university and all that it stood for. As an undergrad back in India, I was actively involved in various societies, both as a member and in a leadership position. These experiences gave me a holistic understanding of the world around me and how we as students can shape it. I was excited to have a similar experience at LSE, but the pandemic drastically changed the circumstances for all of us. College education wasn’t the same as it was before 2019, and the travails of getting accustomed to a hybrid mode of education with hardly any chance to connect with my classmates somehow made participation in any other activity in the university slightly difficult. So, three months after graduating, when I came across this opportunity, I decided to submit my application.
Through the programme, I got a chance to contribute to the mission of the charity and give back to the university. I became a witness to the transformative journey of the students as they steered through the process of finishing their report and presenting it on the final day. Watching them effectively liaise with their charity, incorporating the views of all the stakeholders concerned and doing all this during term time was a mark of their resilience and determination to contribute to the goal of the charity. My interaction with the cohort helped me gain some valuable insights as well. Understanding their problems and helping them find solutions to them was in all honesty a bit challenging initially but by the end of those three months, we had a good rapport which made cooperation easier. I also learned a great deal about the topic of the report submitted by the group I was assigned to. I would recommend this programme to anyone who is looking to diversify their experiences and build their knowledge of the social development sector while working with an extremely talented and motivated group of students. If the prospect of being a ‘mentor’ sounds challenging for anyone who has no previous experience in a role like this, the LSE Volunteer Centre will be there to guide and assist you at every step of the way.
If Shivam has inspired you to volunteer, check out one of our other ongoing opportunities or book a one-to-one with David Coles, the Volunteer Centre Manager if you have more questions. And why not follow us on Twitter, and Instagram to stay up-to-date with our events and opportunities and read our blog for more volunteering tips and stories.
