Volunteering

For about two years now I have been wanting to go back to volunteer work. After having worked as a volunteer for AFS for many years in Cologne, I started going to chapter meetings here, but I never connected.

Having a bit of time on my hands I looked into different things. The options were: walking the dogs at the animal shelter or reading to children.

In December I went to the animal shelter's information meeting. Every time I read something about the animal shelter, it is about their insecure financial situation. I did not know what to expect. It is situated on a big area on the outskirts of town. They have houses for cats, rodents, birds and my main interest - dogs. Everything was very clean and about fifty people work there.

While for instance the cats and chinchillas were unimpressed about their situation, the dog shelters were simply heartbreaking. Designed and kept very well, the dogs have the possibility to be inside and outside. But as soon as one enters their domain, the barking starts, echoing to a thunder in the tiled hall. They had just received a new group of 30 dogs from Romania, all little, desolate looking things and it was hard to bear.

One can go seven days a week to walk the dogs. You show your ID, pick a dog and can take it out for a walk. In my opinion life is not complete without a dog and unfortunately our place is not big enough to have a dog which reduces me to a person who pats every dog I meet on the street. But I am scared of the attachment to one of the poor dogs at the shelter.

There is a possibility to volunteer at the cat house. You go and pat the cats and play with them but they are full and then I am not a cat person. Furthermore one can volunteer at cleaning the cages and rooms.

 I have decided to ponder this option a bit longer.

I also called the organization that reads to children in schools and libraries. I enjoy reading and I cannot stop myself to read out loud to my husband paragraphs of articles or books that I like no matter whether he likes it or not.

The lady on the phone told me that she would give my number to the lady in charge of my area of the city and that Tuesday 3 p.m. someone reads to the kids in a library near me. I decided to go and check it out. Well, the ladies there were not pleased to see me at all. I had just wanted to sit in the back and see how it worked but there was only one kid, two ladies and me. Nothing about sitting in the back... Since they were so unhappy to see me I decided to leave. A couple of days later I talked to the lady of my area on the phone and it is not that you simply start volunteering there, NOOOO. First you have to attend an information event that takes place once every three months. Then you have to attend a reading training and after that you have to accompany an experienced reader before being assigned to a group af kids at a school or a library. Most people volunteering there seem to be retired ladies who have time in the afternoon which is not a bad thing but it is not me.

After this telephone conversation this idea was ruled out completely. For now I am becoming a member of the animal welfare organization in Munich.

For the interested reader, I include the links below.
http://tierschutzverein-muenchen.de/
http://www.lesefuechse.org/