Simone Ramacci shares why he became a student volunteer.
'I don’t know how you do this,' the paramedic said to me and my colleague as she glanced around the small overly-heated room. To be honest, sometimes I am not even sure myself what got me started into the beautiful mess dedicating my weekend nights to assisting students at my university can be. The one thing I know is this: I love it.
There are great perks that come with student volunteering with St John Ambulance: transferable skills (presentations are just way easier after dealing with stubborn patients!), free training, and – last but not least – nice green uniforms!
No matter whether you are an accounting student or an English literature student, you will find yourself equipped to be the difference between a life lost and a life saved. And fellow volunteers will become life-long friends (and they will, sitting in a room waiting for the next call does that to people).
And yet, I think I speak for most of our student volunteers when I say I didn’t join for the perks. I knew I wanted to go to a university with a student volunteering unit since I picked my choices on UCAS, I had – if you don’t mind me saying it – a feeling this was a calling for me, one I had to answer.
Four years down the line I am glad I answered it, not because of the flashy adrenaline-inducing cases I have seen my share of, but because of the people whom I had a chance to help, no matter how small and unimportant their affliction might have looked, because I knew that on a night out even the smallest thing is somebody’s big deal. And that’s why you should join too!
