Let's face it, most people who volunteer are passionate about helping people - but for some influencing social change is also important. Volunteering for a campaigning organisation allows volunteers to help make things happen for large charities. Find out what the grass roots activists get up to here.

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Wednesday Jun 28, 2006

Busy, busy, busy!

 Hello! Apologies for the lack of new posts from me recently but I've been pretty busy with exams! Now they're all over I'm going to have plenty of time to do a lot more work for LMHR and keep this blog up to date.

Quite a lot has happened since I last wrote anything – the most major event being the fact that (due to the fact we had some pretty appalling election results in our area – despite a lot of campaigning and hard work..) we have our own focus group in Barking and Dagenham. We had our first meeting a few weeks back to discuss some initial ideas and plans of action for the area. Most of these I'm not sure I can discuss here but it's all pretty exciting! They're gonna keep me pretty busy this summer!

One of the main things we are currently organising is a school's tour of Barking and Dagenham. We go into a secondary school with a speaker from LMHR and a musical artist – someone who the students respect and listen to and talk to them about what we do and why it's important to be culturally tolerant – that racism isn't acceptable. Right now were approaching both schools and artists who want to take part and arranging dates.. it takes a lot of organising.. Our first is pretty soon and I'll be helping out at that too. The second should hopefully be at my school – I had to go have formal meeting with my head teacher to propose the idea which was pretty scary but he was quite enthusiastic which was brilliant and it should go well.

I'll also be doing some work in the LMHR office whenever I'm free over the summer to help with the work load and wherever I'm needed with all the usual gigs, festivals and events. There's also the RISE anti-racist festival next week in Finsbury park which I will be attending however it's arranged by the Mayor of London, not us, so it probably wont be as good!  I'll certainly have lots to do anyway – at least it'll take my mind of my looming exam results!

Posted by Carolynn ( 1:33 PM )
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Wednesday Jun 14, 2006

Update on Training for social workers

Right ok the chances are that this event could be called 'R U Gettin It?' but hasn't been given the definate go ahead, needs to be passed by those young people that werent at the planning meeting this week.  Which is being held at Investing In Children Centre in Durham, as well as other time spent planning your own workshop away from these meetings.

The actual event in October is now being held at Sunderland Football club which isnt going down well with everyone being the Sunderland / Newcastle fans haha! Although should be good.

We're also getting a bit of training for a day in Grafitti art so we can design a logo for the day which at the moment would be; 'R U Gettin It?'  which should be cool and FUN.

So far the workshop Im delivering with another young volunteer is slowly developing into getting half of  the participatants to design a person one who volunteers or participates in activites and then the other half of the group design a person who doesnt participate /volunteer in anything.  And getting them to see the postives volunteering and participation can give to a young person.

Looks like the B'OSCARS could be happen again next year.  And Im helping out at a Barnardos FUNDAY on Saturday which should be FUN ha-ha!! Ok not that funny.

Posted by Moira ( 9:10 PM )
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Tuesday Jun 13, 2006

exciting news i forgot to tell you about

over the last few weeks i have been struggling for exciting news and happening-oxfam things to tell you about. Then i realised that i had forgotten to mention the exciting University of London Union (ULU) Campaign Awards. With over 25 universities  belonging to ULU , we were very suprised to hear that the Oxfam campaign group i had set up at the university where i work was nominated for an award along with one of our volunteers for Student Campaigner of the Year which was rather exciting!  Unfortunatly we didnt win an award but it was great to know our efforts had been recognised.

Posted by Helen Bryant ( 9:33 AM )
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Saturday Jun 10, 2006

Training for social workers

At the moment I'm involved in running a confrence to happen in October to be delivered by young people to student social workers, doctors, schools you name it if they deal with children and young people they will be there!

I went to the second meeting on the 30th May where we discussed how it would run and it was decided that there were to be 5 workshops fitting into the 'Every Child Matters Framework' these being 'Be Healthy', 'Stay Safe', Enjoy and Achieve'  'Make a positive Contribution' and 'Achieve Economic Well Being'.

The workshop which I am running with another young person, also a young volunteer and Barnardos service user , is on Young Volunteers and Participation,  fitting into 'Make a positive Contribution'  category.  The workshops are to last approx 30 minutes, and the idea is that in our workshop obviously it is in early stages of planning but to get participants to participate and getting them to design a person spliting into 2 groups the only thing is the 1 of these designs will be for a young person who volunteers' whilst the other doesnt volunteer, to help demonstrate the difference what something like volunteering can do for a young person. 

There is also other workshops going to be going on _: Young Carers, Bullying and other various issues for children and young people throughout the North East.  We're only in the planning stages of the event now, and have another meeting this Tuesday to share with the group ideas for the workshop in which you're involved in running, and before this meeting on Tuesday I will also be meeting with the other young person who I'll be delivering the workshop with to discuss what we both want to do and how we intend to deliver it.  It isnt for a while yet so I will keep you posted on the goings on

 

Posted by Moira ( 6:39 PM )
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Friday Jun 09, 2006

media scoops and campaigning in the sun

Oh it's been a varied few days. I've managed to begin to really feel like I work here, with some substantial task being thrown my way, coupled with some more of the humourously mundane. In fact, I even managed to combine both of these with my first dabbling at writing press releases..

yes, the Shelter charity shop in Wakefield had a new kitchen fitted last week. Not only that, but the kitchen was donated and fitted by local handymen from the Mears Group, who are the biggest social housing renovaters nationwide. A press release was duely sent out to local papers across the region and a photocall arranged to capture the spotless new cupboards, state of the art fridge and whistling shiney kettle.

The little known but very highly regarded Wakefield Express and Star turned up and captured, i believe, the scoop of the year thus far. If only the Times had known in advance...

In addition to capturing local column inches I had the chance to add my services to Shelter's sign up campaign at last weekend's Camden Green Fair. The sun shone, the organic cider was delicious and we achieved a huge number of sign ups for our Full House campaign which is calling for the Government to tackle the huge problem of overcrowded homes in the UK today.

The final triumph for the Shelter Press team recently has been the success of the launch of Shelter's Home Is campaign in Scotland. We are asking people to log on and tell us what home means to them. So what does it? Have a think and let us know at http://scotland.shelter.org.uk/howtohelp/howtohelp-4695.cfm?frmAlias=banner 

To me right now it should mean a big garden full of friends, tunes and kronenburg so I can enjoy this amazing weather over the weekend...

Posted by Rachael ( 11:52 AM )
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Thursday Jun 01, 2006

African vibes

Richard Ashcroft varies in lots of ways to African Music, for a start ones pretty depressing and somber while the other  is sure of making you feel good happy vibes and tap your feet. The type of people attracted to these  sorts of music also varies quite a bit!

Campaigning for Oxfam at the African Music Festival (http://www.joyfulnoise.co.uk/lamf/index.htm)  on Sunday 21st May  was a bit of challenge, as we competed with Zongo, a ground-breaking fusion of Afrobeat, Hi Life and Rock from Ghana, for peoples attention. Normally we would find ourselves approaching people as they waited to go into a music venue, this time we found ourselves in a very full and energetic venue competing with  the noise - while they were playing we ended up dancing witrh our clip boards to show people that Oxfam campaigners also know how to party! 

During the few quiet times when we were able to talk to people about the Control Arms campaign we were bombarded with interested people. with such a flood of interest around our table and not enough cameras to assist with taking photos of all of those  wanting to get involved. i again stuck to getting people to draw faces of themselves,  approaching people who were sitting around tables and enjoying the atmosphere. This  approach does take a bit  longer but has the added bonus of getting to chat with people at the same time, i had the fun challenge of trying to expalin to some Italians, with limited English, what the campaign was all about! 

 

Posted by Helen Bryant ( 11:23 AM )
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