At 15, Youth in Action ("Aktyvus Jaunimas") project coordinator Ieva Jakubauskaitė started volunteering and understood at such a young age, she wanted to work on international projects.

In the youth "Life's Start-up" series, "Try a Career Through Volunteering", Youth in Action project coordinator Greta Kunickytė and organization "Social Action" project coordinator and mentor Ieva Jakubauskaitė, discussed the varieties of volunteering available for young people locally and abroad.  They also talked about exchange programs and internship opportunities, the acquisition of skills and competencies and other values.

Volunteering: Experiences, Trips and Projects

Kunickytė, project coordinator at Youth in Action, said she started volunteering when she was 15 years old.

"Thanks to this organization, despite the fact that I was very young, I understood that I wanted to spend my time on international projects and project implementation. I understood that this really is my path and I would like to literally spend my life working in this area."

Volunteering allows one to travel - you can go to Europe and to countries that are in other continents. It is not necessary to have a lot of money saved because just about everything is free. For example, before the quarantine, the Youth in Action association organized expeditions to such countries as: Argentina, Peru or South Africa. For example in Peru or Africa our participants had a goal - to see how prisons are faring in these countries and how former convicts-are being integrated into society. Participants studied, watched and then implemented various practical tasks with prison staff. When they later returned to Lithuania, they created a methodology which helps people here - former convicts to integrate into society, said Youth in Action project coordinator Kunickytė.

Volunteering – Discoveries and Lessons Learned

Organization "Social Action“ project coordinator, mentor Ieva Jakubauskaitė assures that various competencies can be acquired during volunteering, as the emphasis is on learning through experience.

“This means a young person tries himself out leaving his comfort zone and enters into situations in cooperation with others or undertaking some type of activity which is unfamiliar to him. And volunteering can give him this space where he has the freedom to be who he is. And then later list your lessons learned and abilities.“

She said that volunteering can be useful in other areas of life: looking for work, discovering certain abilities that were not unveiled during work or studies.

"Those discoveries are often very big. I myself have come from the sphere of volunteering and it took me to those places where perhaps I did not plan to be or go. I didn't know that I can do those things which I am now doing," said "Social Action" project coordinator Jakubauskaitė.