2025
Dec 27th-28th
Coal Briquette Volunteering
I had always thought of warmth as something that simply existed. When it got cold, I turned on the heating. I rarely stopped to think about what it took to keep a house warm, let alone what it would mean to live without that certainty. During this year's coal briquette delivery volunteering project, I became inseparable with two other volunteers, a man in his twenties and a woman in her thirties. Despite the differences in our ages, we quickly settled into a rhythm, passing heavy briquettes from one person to the next. It was strange how naturally we worked together, three people who might otherwise never have met, connected by something as simple as moving coal.
As we worked, I began thinking about the families who would eventually use these briquettes. For me, carrying coal was a few hours of volunteering. For them, it was a way to get through the winter. The same briquette that left black dust on my gloves could mean another evening in a warm home. I also found myself thinking about how differently we experience basic necessities. Warmth, food, and shelter are things everyone needs, yet the effort required to secure them varies enormously. What I had always considered ordinary was, for someone else, something that had to be planned for and worried about.
By the end, my arms were tired and my clothes as well as my face were covered in coal dust. But I was also thinking about the two people I had worked alongside. Our ages and lives were different, yet none of that seemed particularly important when we were passing briquettes to one another. Coal, and its remnants had left me thinking about why something as basic as staying warm could depend so much on the circumstances into which someone was born.
Dec 13th
Donation to World Vision Zambia
For the third consecutive year, I prepared a Christmas package for C******a and his friends in Zambia. This time, I chose footballs, trainers, and clothes, thinking less about the excitement of unwrapping presents and more about what might become part of their everyday lives. A football, for instance, was not simply something to own. It could be passed between friends, carried onto a field, and become the centre of an afternoon spent together.
As I packed the gifts, I found myself returning to Amartya Sen's capability approach, which distinguishes between possessing resources and having the genuine freedom to do something with them. A pair of trainers might be useful for getting around or playing football, but its value ultimately depended on the opportunities available to the person wearing them. I began to think less about the objects themselves and more about the experiences, relationships, and choices they might enable.
Yet I was also conscious that I could not determine those possibilities from thousands of miles away. I could send a football, but I could not know what games would be played with it, or whether it would be used at all. Perhaps that was precisely the point. The value of a gift should not depend on whether it fulfils the giver's imagined purpose. Three years into this tradition, I was learning that sharing something meaningful also meant relinquishing control over what it would come to mean. I wanted these gifts to offer possibilities, not prescribe how they should be enjoyed.
Dec 6th
Jeju Y*** Home Donation
When Jeju Y*** Home requested donations of food and snacks, we at common&good organised a collection in response. Unlike our earlier visits, when we had selected items based on what we thought the children might enjoy, this time the home had identified what would be useful. The distinction seemed small, but it prompted us to reconsider who should have the authority to define a need.
We began thinking about the information asymmetry that often exists between donors and recipients. Those providing resources may have greater purchasing power, but they rarely possess the same understanding of local circumstances as the people receiving them. In economics, Friedrich Hayek's concept of dispersed knowledge suggests that information relevant to decisions is distributed among individuals rather than concentrated in any single authority. We found this particularly relevant to charitable work, where good intentions could easily become a substitute for asking questions.
What interested us was how a simple request could alter the relationship between giving and receiving. Rather than treating the home as a passive beneficiary, responding to its request allowed its own priorities to guide our contribution. We began to understand that effective generosity was not necessarily about giving more, but about recognising the limits of our knowledge and allowing those most familiar with their circumstances to shape the decisions that affected them.
Jun 22nd, 2025
Jeju S** Cathedral
On June 22nd, common&good donated food, household appliances, and other essential supplies through Jeju S** Cathedral to support individuals and families in need. Unlike some of our previous initiatives, which focused on educational opportunities or children's welfare, this donation centred on the practical necessities of everyday life. We wanted to contribute items that could be used immediately, whether to prepare a meal, maintain a household, or ease the burden of ordinary expenses.
What stayed with me was how easily I had overlooked the importance of these seemingly mundane objects. Food disappears from the table, appliances become part of the background, and household supplies are rarely given a second thought until they are missing. Preparing this donation made me consider how inequality can manifest not only in the opportunities people are denied, but also in the everyday necessities they must struggle to afford. There was nothing particularly extraordinary about the items we donated, and perhaps that was precisely the point. Dignity is not always restored through grand opportunities. Sometimes, it begins with having what one needs to get through an ordinary day.
May 4th, 2025
Jeju A** Children's Home
Ahead of Children's Day, we at common&good organised a donation of food and snacks to Jeju A**** Children's Home, responding to a request from the home itself. Having previously donated gifts and other supplies, I found myself thinking about how often we had approached these occasions by asking what we could give, rather than what the children might actually want. This time, the decision was already made for us, and I realised how much simpler, and perhaps more meaningful, that made the process.
I had always associated giving with thoughtfulness, with the time spent choosing something and imagining how it might be received. Yet I began to question whether there was a certain selfishness hidden within that satisfaction. Even with the best intentions, it was easy to mistake what I wanted to give for what someone else wanted to receive. I was reminded of the economic problem of information asymmetry, but what struck me was something more personal: how easily good intentions could become a substitute for genuinely understanding another person's perspective.
I came away realising that listening was not merely a preliminary step to giving, but an act of respect in itself. I did not want common&good's work to be defined by how generous we appeared, or even by how much we managed to contribute. I wanted us to become more attentive to the people behind each request, recognising that they understood their own lives far better than we ever could. Perhaps meaningful generosity begins with the humility to accept that we do not always know what is best for someone else.
Weekly online lessons
What began as a handful of online lessons gradually became something much larger throughout 2025. As more members joined common&good's London branch, we were able to expand our tutoring programme to 15 children supported by five volunteer tutors. With more students came different learning needs, schedules, and personalities, and I found myself taking on responsibilities beyond teaching my own lessons. Coordinating tutors, preparing materials, and ensuring that each child received consistent support became just as important as the lessons themselves. I began to understand that expanding an initiative was not simply about reaching more people, but about making sure that the quality of support did not diminish as the numbers grew.
One conversation particularly stayed with me. When I asked a student what they wanted to learn next, they responded, "Can you teach me something that isn't in my textbook?" It was a question I had not anticipated. I had spent so much time thinking about how to explain the curriculum that I had rarely considered what the children themselves might be curious about beyond it. Another student once asked, "If I already know the answer, can I still ask why?" These questions challenged my understanding of what our lessons should accomplish. I began encouraging tutors to leave room for conversations that wandered beyond the worksheets, allowing children to pursue questions even when they had little to do with the day's planned topic.
The programme's growth also brought a different kind of satisfaction. Seeing five tutors contribute their time reminded me that the impact of common&good did not have to depend on what I could personally teach or organise. Each tutor brought their own strengths, and each child responded differently to them. Fifteen students may seem a modest number, but behind that figure were fifteen different relationships, each requiring patience, consistency, and trust. I began the year thinking about how many children we could reach. I ended it thinking about how many people we could bring together to keep reaching them.
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