By: Sani Firmansyah (Supporter Center Officer WWF-Indonesia)

Volunteering is a form of community participation to an idea. Without the spirit of volunteering, a sense of mutual cooperation between individuals will be very difficult to realize. To spread the spirit of volunteering, on Sunday (10/12), a Volunteer Week was held at Gandaria City, South Jakarta. Various communities and people gathered and celebrated the Volunteer Festival, which was initiated by the Good Action Team (Campaign.com, Indonesian Future Leaders, and Indorelawan.org) supported by Change.org Indonesia, the Ministry of Social Affairs, and the Ministry of Education and Culture.

Ahmad Aziz, Community Engagement Officer Campaign.com, said, "This Volunteer Festival aims to encourage public awareness of the importance of volunteerism as a forum for collaboration in solving social problems in Indonesia."

The event itself presented a seminar titled "Gotong Royong untuk Indonesia" which discussed matters related to volunteering, including real actions from young people, the face of 'volunteerism', and volunteering and playmates for children. Dozens of social organizations also took part in the exhibition that showed various forms of volunteer action in Indonesia. In addition, there were panel discussions from a range of speakers, photo exhibitions, skills classes, donation drives and musical performances.

At this festival, there was also a class on getting to know Indonesian sign language hosted by Surya Sahetapy. "For those of you who always feel that the world is unfair, have tried but have never produced results, you don't deserve to be discouraged. You have to keep fighting and believe that you will succeed," Surya said during the sign language session.

WWF-Indonesia's Panda Mobile Team, at the momentum was also invited to enliven the Volunteer Festival. In addition to introducing the various conservation efforts carried out by WWF-Indonesia, the Panda Mobile team also invited festival visitors to join the 'spearhead' of this environmental organization by becoming a Panda Mobile volunteer.

"I hope that by joining WWF-Indonesia's Panda Mobile team, I can help conserve nature starting from myself and spreading it to my family, friends and community," said Merci Fortune, a student of a private university in Jakarta.

"Volunteering is an excellent opportunity for young people to develop themselves because in addition to practicing skills, volunteer-related activities are a means for young people to train their sense of empathy for others," explained Pratama Aditya Haryanto, Coordinator of WWF-Indonesia's Panda Mobile.

Those of you who are dynamic, creative, and want to be part of the solution to environmental problems can also join as a volunteer Panda Mobile WWF-Indonesia to deliver conservation messages around Jabodetabek. Register yourself by filling out the form at this link.