Volunteering in the animal welfare industry has played a crucial part in not only my professional career development, but also my own personal growth.
I can confidently say that I wouldn’t be the vet nurse I am today, if it wasn’t for my volunteering experiences.
Signing up as a volunteer at an animal shelter is actually the core reason for why I am a vet nurse in the first place.
And in return, now that I am a qualified nurse, so many more volunteering opportunities have opened up for me, which again has fast tracked my skills as a nurse, how’s that for a win-win-win situation!
I first started volunteering at my local animal shelter back in 2015. I had just moved across the world from Oslo, Norway, to Gold Coast, Australia, all by myself as a 20 year old little shy girl with very limited English speaking skills.
I came to Australia to study a Bachelor of Business and Event Management, becoming a vet nurse was not a part of the plan at all despite being an avid animal lover. I just didn’t think a career in the animal industry was a viable option for me at the time.
Over the next four years I volunteered in several different areas of the shelter, including the community vet clinic, the charity shop, the cat section, and I even completed an internship with the event and fundraiser team as a part of the bachelor I was studying.
Not only did all of these experiences help me gain invaluable knowledge and skills when it came to the hands-on animal side of things, my confidence and communication skills had also dramatically improved.
I got to know a lot of staff and volunteers around the shelter, which then led me to be recommended for a paid position as an animal attendant, an opportunity that wouldn’t have come to me if it
wasn’t for volunteering.
Over the next two years, while working as an animal attendant, it became clear to me that I was going to spend the rest of my life helping animals. Despite having spent three years and an outrageous amount of money on a bachelors degree in a completely different field, I enrolled in a vet nursing course, and instantly discovered how it feels to study something I’m actually interested in!
From then on my desire to make a difference to animals that need it the most spiked tremendously.
During my course I started daydreaming of all the places I’d travel to and the animals I’d help, and I started researching different volunteering organisations, trips and opportunities, both within Australia and overseas, and I couldn’t wait to be able to sign up.
Once I had finally graduated and gained enough experience as a vet nurse I signed up for a 7 day volunteering trip to Thursday Island in the Torres Strait.
The project is organised by Vets Beyond Borders, the Animal Welfare League Qld and Thursday Island Animal Support Group and involves sending a group of vets and nurses to provide necessary veterinary care to the animals on the island every three months as there is no permanent clinic anywhere near the area.
This trip was a major milestone in my career, and it impacted me in so many more ways than I had imagined it would.
I actually loved the experience so much that I went on the same trip again 6 months later. It turned out that helping animals in need, although being the most paramount element of the trip, wasn’t the only thing that made a huge imprint on me. It was in fact only the tip of the iceberg.
Just like the first time I walked through the door to my local animal shelter 7 years ago, arriving on Thursday Island with the other volunteers, I immediately felt an incredibly strong sense of community and togetherness, despite starting out as complete strangers.
There’s something truly special about sharing such a vulnerable and cathartic experience with people you connect with through mutual ethics, goals and intentions.
When you spend a whole week together, in a small space, under significant pressure to get as much as possible done, in hot and humid weather, with limited resources, unfamiliar equipment, medications, anaesthetic protocols and procedures, you can count on all sort of feelings to surface.
I think it’s safe to say that we all felt sad, frustrated, exhausted and stressed at times, however, we also shared many laughs, smiles and heartwarming moments together, which in the end outweighed all the bad.
Volunteering allowed me to experience a deep connection with new people and create long lasting friendships, it also helps me to build a bigger network of people who are passionate about creating a better future for animals.
Yet, I think the deepest connection I made was the one within myself.
Going way out of my comfort zone to travel to an unfamiliar place was scary, but at the same time I was feeling so proud of myself for getting as far as I had, and for getting out there and accomplishing the goals I had set out for myself.
We didn’t get much spare time on the island, but I still had moments to myself every now and then, like at night time, as I was away from my pets and my partner, I spent those moments reflecting on how I had gotten to where I was, how hard I had worked to get there and how I’m actually making a positive impact in this world.
Spending this time alone strengthened my relationship with myself and made me rediscover how valuable and worthy I am.
We all know that the veterinary industry can be cruel and painful at times, but I’m convinced that by volunteering, both at the shelter and on the two trips to Thursday Island, and building these new wonderful connections with myself and other people has made me a stronger and more resilient nurse.
Additionally, volunteering has brought me so many wonderful memories, friendships I know will last forever and my dog, who is my heart and soul, and for that I am eternally grateful, and I will continue to sign up to new volunteering projects for the rest of my days, and I hope you will too.
Written by Trine Lise Frost
