Community Activities for Youth (7 Good Options to Try Out)

This blog features a list of eight community activities that are good for youth. Readers will first learn about why young people need to engage in community service. Then, we will take a closer look at these community activities.

What are some Community Activities for Youth?

Below are listed some positive community activities that young people can try out to give back to society:

• Protecting Animals
• Joining Religious/Spiritual Groups
• Preserving the Environment
• Volunteering at Homeless Shelters
• Interning at Addiction Clinics
• Babysitting
• Tutoring
• Helping Kids with Special Needs

Why is it Important for Young People to Engage in Community Activities?

This world can be pretty strange when you’re just starting to experience it. When you’re young, you’re full of energy and hope but the circumstances you go through may at times dampen your spirits. In these moments, engaging in community activities can restore a feeling of safety, connection, and higher purpose.

Such feelings help boost one’s self-esteem and confidence while also benefiting one’s ecosystem. Giving back makes you feel like you’re a part of something bigger than you, which is why the joy of giving lasts much longer than any materialistic pleasure.

Since the youth, today seems afflicted by things like anxiety, depression, and issues with their self-image, community activities pose as a simple and doable solution. Moreover, young people have a lot more zeal, which goes a long way in helping the community.

8 Community Activities for Youth

In this section, we are going to describe eight community activities suitable for the youth. These activities can be done through volunteering, internship programmes, or employment depending on the organisations running them and their funding.

Protecting Animals

A lot of people find that they are more comfortable interacting with animals than with people. It takes a lot of compassion and love for one to be able to feel empathy for non-human creatures. An unfortunate consequence of that is that there’s plenty of animal cruelty in this world.

Animal rights groups are organisations that aim to protect the rights of these voiceless animals. Whether it is setting up shelters, veterinary services, or adoption drives, there are many ways the youth can engage in protecting animals.

This is a wonderful way to increase wellbeing for people dealing with mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, ADHD, or autism. Thus, this community activity can be fun, fulfilling, and empowering for young individuals.

Joining Religious/Spiritual Groups

If you’re seeking purpose or looking for the meaning of life, spirituality and religion can be used as stepping stones. It doesn’t matter if such concepts are factually accurate or not. It is a matter of faith and belief. Believing in a greater power has numerous benefits in our lives.

That’s probably why countless groups focus on spiritual values, which aim to improve the community. Quite often, these groups invite volunteers to help them carry forward their mission.

Such opportunities are great for the youth to participate in community activities. They offer learning, service, and a sense of individuality that exists in harmony with the community.

Preserving the Environment

By now, there is a lot more awareness about environmental issues than let’s say, a decade ago. People are no longer in denial that human actions are having serious repercussions that impact our planet and other living beings.

Signs of climate change have become much more visible than ever before, inspiring both young and mature citizens to unite and call for action. For example, Greta Thunberg’s school strike for climate got a lot of attention from children particularly.

The youth can participate in community activities that spread awareness, conduct preservation drives, and organise non-violent strikes that hold the perpetrators accountable.

Volunteering at Homeless Shelters

Even with all the progress that advancements in science and technology have brought to the world, economic conditions worldwide are growingly more unstable. The pandemic too caused many setbacks leading to more people suffering from poverty.

Unless we change our socio-economic models and policies to be more sustainable, the issue of homelessness will always be a highly prevalent problem. That’s why this too is an important community activity that requires the hard work of the youth.

One can contribute by helping build houses, organising fundraisers, and serving food at homeless shelters. There is no dearth of work in these shelters so you can find all sorts of tasks to do, both manual and skilled.

Interning at Addiction Clinics

Several people use things like alcohol and substances to cope with their underlying mental health issues. It’s not their fault as they are sick and have not been shown how to deal with their sickness in healthy ways. Or they lack the resources and support required to do that.

As a result, addiction is one of the major problems affecting communities. Not only is this harmful to the addict, but it also affects everyone living around the person. Addiction clinics are community organisations that attempt to help such individuals and their families.

Using pharmacotherapy, psychological interventions, and environmental support, these clinics fight the problem of addiction and provide opportunities for healthy living. Addiction clinics often look for volunteers and interns to help them carry out these services.

Babysitting

If you’re fond of children, you can also think about helping parents out by watching their kids. You don’t need to go through a previously existing organisation for this. Simply by word of mouth and networking, you can find people desperately in need of child care.

Single parents, working mothers, and parents of multiple children tend to require babysitting services for them to live healthily. It’s not a joke when people say, “it takes a village to raise children.”

By offering to babysit or taking a fee for this service, young individuals can give parents a mutually benefitting situation. The babysitter helps the community, the parent gets some time off, and the child gets access to a younger, more energetic, and more approachable role model.

Tutoring

Another community activity that doesn’t require getting in touch with an established organisation is tutoring. There are many students out there who are struggling with their grades, loans, and other life stressors. Helping them out with their studies is a simple and noble way of giving back to society.

It doesn’t take much to do it except time and people skills. Even if you weren’t that great in academics, you can always teach literacy and fundamentals. Immigrants, refugees, and students from economically weaker sections of the community could benefit a lot from free tutoring.

Teaching is also a great way of building your own understanding of a subject. After all, when you teach, you learn twice.

Helping Kids with Special Needs

Whether a child is disabled, intellectually challenged, from a broken home, neurodiverse, or an abuse survivor, their special needs aren’t always taken care of. Hence, they face a lot more challenges than the average kid.

Fortunately, there are professionals and organisations that understand this and do their best to provide the required resources. One can volunteer to help by associating with such organisations. 

Generally, it takes a little bit of training in sensitisation for one to be able to provide these services. Nevertheless, this too is an extremely fulfilling community activity. Seeing a child reach their true potential despite life’s challenges is a phenomenal experience.

Conclusion

This blog features a list of eight community activities that are good for youth. Readers will first learn about why young people need to engage in community service. Then, we will take a closer look at these community activities.

The community activities for youth mentioned here included Protecting Animals, Joining Religious/Spiritual Groups, Preserving the Environment, Volunteering at Homeless Shelters, Interning at Addiction Clinics, Babysitting, Tutoring, and Helping Kids with Special Needs.

FAQs (Community Activities for Youth)

What are community support activities?

A community support activity is something that you do to help the members of a community live better lives. You can do this directly by offering them the service that they need or indirectly by raising money and awareness about the problem. 

How do you help a teenager with anxiety?

Teenage anxiety is quite a prevalent problem anyway and the pandemic has only made it worse. Some useful tips to help a teenager with anxiety are:

• Encourage seeing a mental health professional or a counsellor
• Talk to them about their worries and listen
• Try CBT workbooks written for their age group
• Encourage physical activity
• Seek local support groups for anxious teens

What are some examples of social activities?

Here is a list of some fun social activities you can try:

• Outdoor games and activities
• Restaurant/bar hopping
• Picnics
• Skating
• Watching a movie
• Board games
• Attending parties and gatherings
• Debating on current affairs
• Dancing
• Attending concerts

References

• https://www.jstor.org/stable/24233491
• https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=g4p3jGGbVXgC&oi
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09518390701630833
• https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1532-7795.1301006