Frankly, when I started out in WBFN, this kind of volunteering meant exactly nothing to me. Not that I had not volunteered earlier in my life, but it had always been in a very focused manner—organizing and executing ideas and events with a very precise and tangible goal. For example, I once volunteered as an entrepreneur and executive leader on the creation (physical structures as well as organizational structures) of a movie and event theatre in a town in Denmark.

But here, what was going on at the WBFN? There were so many balls in the air and no one to catch them, it seemed, and yet big events were pulled off to success, again and again. I read the Mosaic and went to the SOP (Spouse Orientation Program). Wherever I have lived, I have always avoided welcoming coffees and get-togethers, but still I attended the latter a couple of times here. I am a bit afraid of rooms and situations where you are expected to speak about your own, and listen to others’, stories, problems, etc. I have always tried to focus more on the next-door neighbors than on finding friends from my country of origin or from my husband’s profession or workplace. Besides, I had plenty to do at home arranging and managing our private life and concerns, reading and writing, doing cultural stuff and cooking good nutritious meals, all the things I have always done to entertain myself through all our relocations over the years.

This time around, there were no children to tend to, so after a while the deserted house and street where I live became boring, inspirations were not enough, and I went to the WBFN to try and see whether I could be of any help there. At the door, two energetic and very sweet ladies welcomed me, and took me in right away. For some time, I came to the office frequently, but I did not do much, was more observing what things were done and how. I think at some point they may have even become tired of me not being of much use! Eventually, I started working on the Mosaic team, writing and helping the editor in her sometimes lonely and time-consuming task of sorting, preparing and editing the coming issue of the Mosaic. From there, I got involved in other areas under the huge umbrella of WBFN. In the beginning, I had thought I would still spend most of my time at home, but as things evolved it became more and more frequent that I would go to the office and help with whatever was needed. This year I became part of the Executive Committee. I am involved in the Spouse Orientation Program and the Staff Orientation Program. I spend a lot of time on the Spouse Issues Committee, and on the Bank’s Domestic Abuse Task Force, where Hilary Welch and I are representing WBFN. I also still work on Mosaic, writing articles and helping the editor, as well as generally helping out whenever there are events that need it.

For some, meeting new friends is the main part of volunteering. For me the most important thing about volunteering under the WBFN umbrella has been learning. I learn new skills everyday: I learn to work in a highly politicized and hierarchical environment, fortunately with some space for different views and backgrounds. It is an environment that asks of you to be willing to sit and do paper cutouts for the Children’s Holiday Party one day, and to take decisions on complicated matters on a spouse issue the next day. I learn to constrain myself to all the flexibility needed in an atmosphere where we all are there because our spouses or partners work with the WBG, but where, aside from a few old-guard members who secure the continuity of the organization and its important corporate memory, few volunteers stay for long because they get jobs, are transferred to other places, have babies or leave for some other reason. It means that we all have to be willing to carry out tasks that need to be done, but that may not necessarily be always in the focus area of our own immediate desire or interest. It is teaching me new ways of doing, gives me an enormous amount of inspiration to develop new ideas and makes me meet new people whom I slowly learn to love, for all their different ways of conducting themselves work-wise as well as socially. I love to be a part of the diversity of religions, cultures, and geographically conditioned peculiarities, such as the Dutch and the Danes’ use of bikes as a means of transportation, while other nationalities see biking as a sport! Of course, Denmark and the Netherlands are flat and not warm!

In my native Denmark, volunteering is something you do if you have plenty of spare time, have “a bleeding heart” or simply want to meet and socialize with new people. To be a volunteer adds very little credit on your resume where I come from. In the USA, and in the World Bank as well, the work of a volunteer is valued and is seen on resumes as a rather positive feature, an important and maybe not so widely known attribute of volunteering here. Personally, I do not need to work to enjoy life, but to enjoy life I want to work on issues that make sense to me.

Volunteering at the WBFN also carries the added benefit that the goal is to help others like me to settle in a new place as diverse and challenging as this.

I hope everyone gets the chance to experience the rewarding feeling that comes with being an active part of a volunteer organization.

Annemarie Brink Olsen