This will be the last blog about how my perspective has changed over the past few years. From then on, every blog will focus on how The Compass Trust is doing! Stuff that you actually care about, rather than me banging on about myself!!!

Here we go…

Throughout my final year of University, my plan upon graduation was always to return to South Africa. For how long, would depend on my circumstances.

During my final year, I looked at grad job after grad job, putting half-hearted efforts into each application. There was no passion or desire to start a full-time, 9-5 job just yet. I wanted to travel.

My heart was set on a return to South Africa.

Upon my graduation, my plan was to go back to SA for 3 months, and then return to Europe to apply to graduate jobs in the UK after that. My plan was to then use my savings to travel the rest of the world. I don’t think there’s any more important thing a person can do when they are young, than travel.

As soon as I set foot back in Cape Town, my plans started to change. I saw children who I had known from my last trip. And to my surprise they remembered me. Not only me, volunteers who had also previously been there with me. They asked about everyone who had been there in 2012. They even asked if I was still dating a volunteer I was with previously. To their dismay I wasn’t!

This is how important volunteers are. These children can go into school and forget what they learned that day. But they can remember every little detail about volunteers who have come to help them. They meet 100’s of volunteers, but ones who make a difference stay in their minds and in their hearts. It gives them hope but it also gives them an escape from the crime, poverty and drugs they are surrounded by.

Volunteers offer help in tutoring, sports and social help. They offer friendship. But more importantly, they offer these children a glimpse into a world that they may never see. That may sound quite disheartening. But it gives these children hope. Life is nothing without hope, no matter who you are.

But on my quest for finding my career path and what I wanted to do with my life, I also discovered the effect these children have of volunteers. These children had changed my life. I found hope in them.

While I was worrying about getting the right graduate job after University, they just hoped they would be able to go to school the next day. This is why I found hope in them.

No matter what worries I had about my career path and where life was going to take me, if these children can smile everyday, so can I. Sure, I still worry about things that don’t matter. Manchester United’s champions league qualification for example. But I still know that I have opportunities that haven’t been afforded to other people. I am more fortunate than others; not because of anything I’ve done, but because of where I was born.
It’s the responsibility of those who are more fortunate, to give back. That’s what we are going to try and do at The Compass Trust.

Thanks for reading, always good and love to all.

Matt