All kinds of volunteering can make a difference to society, but opportunities like these have community enrichment at their core.

All | Moira | Sharon | Will | Andy | Ray | EmmaM

Thursday Aug 04, 2011

From unemployment to volunteering to employment....

During those dark dreary, post-University days that move so slowly through the Autumn and Winter that I, like so many others thought to myself, 'Where have all my friends gone?', 'What am I doing?' and 'Was all that money really worth it?' I was bored and unemployed. I left University and searched for a job for months and was ultimately left demoralised and unsuccessful. The abstract thoughts of working were too much for a brain and body that was rarely up before 10am. I needed to do something.

So, as I am now so accustomed to, I searched Do-it, for volunteering opportunities in my local area, and thus a new journey began. I got in touch with the local Youth Action Team and swiftly joined; motivated by communication, drive and possibilities, it was exciting. Here I spent time working in a team of other young people, putting together events, fundraising, sharing ideas and occasionally going to the pub. What a life!

A fellow Youth Action Team member was living away from home and volunteering full time with CSV, this sounded intriguing. I wanted to move out, but couldn't get a job; yeah a full fridge is brilliant but a life away from home is better. I knew that volunteering full time for a year would give me the skills and experience to move forward and hopefully never lie on the sofa, slouched like a dying bear at 2:20 in the afternoon watching Come Dine With Me... again.

So it was that I too applied for the CSV role, a role which could send me anywhere in the UK, possibly supporting people with disabilities or working in a school, it could have been anything, but at least it was something. Find out more about residential opportunities here.

Thankfully I was accepted, and asked to come to work in CSV's London offices. I was given the scope for an intergenerational project called Young at Heart that links 16-25 year olds with older members of the community. I couldn't believe my luck. I'd never worked in an office before and had been given this fantastic project that would build community links around Camden and Islington and got to live in London for the first time as well!

Through volunteering full time I learned so many basic skills that I simply hadn't at University. Whilst it was a vital experience, managing your time at University isn't a priority - if anything, I had too much time to know what to do with - now I had to plan, organise and manage. I arranged events, gave presentations about volunteering to young people, developed skills and was on interview panels. I even started writing a blog for Do-it about my experiences.

It felt like I was finally getting somewhere! I was gaining confidence, I understood what a charity did and how important the work of its employees is to achieving that aim. I worked with brilliant young people who could talk and engage with older people whether we were designing World Cup mascots or creating film posters.

These experiences carried on throughout my one year placement and by the time I left I was sure that I wanted to work for a charity. Now, that might not be the same for everybody, but the sureness of conviction that I found, the pleasure that I got from working in that environment and the skills I learned and the people I met were invaluable, and would be invaluable to any young people struggling to find a job at the moment.

By creating strong links through my volunteering, and also having the back up that a degree reflects I have now been springboarded into a job with YouthNet, the charity behind Do-it, where I first looked for opportunities, and where I posted opportunities for my volunteering project. It feels like I should perhaps break into a rendition of the 'Circle of Life'.

Posted by Andy ( 10:12 AM )
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Thursday Jan 13, 2011

Show time

Since last time we have had some slow moving developments on the project but like the tortoise and the hare, the tortoise is now steaming ahead. For the past couple of months I have been working with the young people involved in the project to give them new activities to participate in as a group, and last night we went to our first one.

Prior to Christmas I had arranged a meeting with the National Theatre, going in I was slightly nervous but thought "no, I shall put my best foot forward", I walked out with 14 heavily discounted tickets for Fela and a free follow up workshop. I thought to myself "that was easy".

The next couple of weeks I gathered up people to attend, this was obviously quite easy to do, asking people if they want to see a hit show at the National Theatre for free will make your life a little bit easier. Unfortunately, we had one volunteer drop out because of illness, but other than that we filled our allocation.

I wanted to take the young people out to experience something different, vibrant, and exciting and that would speak to them. Fela was perfect for that, the story of the Nigerian afro-beat politician and musician Fela Kuti was jam packed with great songs, amazing dancing and wonderful technical stage direction – perfect for a group of young people who rarely engage with theatre. I know I was meant to be working, but I really enjoyed myself too

We wanted to make the experience as rounded as possible for the young people and managed to wangle 5 free programmes, each of the young people could take it home as a souvenir, and at the interval ice creams were inevitably devoured.

Fela will be followed up by a workshop that will discuss the themes in Fela and involve some active participation with the group – this will engage the young people with the play and give them something more to think about other than the dancer's bottoms.

Next up, we have a street dance activity in mid February, this is definitely not my forte, but something I hope the young people will fully enjoy and participate in. Will keep you updated on how things go.

Posted by Andy ( 4:11 PM )
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Friday Oct 29, 2010

A new project

I am no longer young at heart. That was debatable anyway, the miserable old git that I am, however I am referring to my previous project. Yes, I am now 'getting your voice heard'! Hurrah! I have begun a new project with CSV that I am running and have full responsibility for, now, that's fantastic if everything goes well, sadly then it becomes a team effort. Damn. But what if all this money (I've got a brand new computer that I'm typing this on at my desk!), time, effort, energy and resources they've put in place for me goes wrong. Then I am the only one to blame.

However, I stride to succeed if nothing else, and this new project has given me a number of different skills to learn and adapt to. I will now be working with young people in care aged 14-17 to improve their confidence, self-esteem and feel like they are being listened to. Now, imagine how the best way to achieve that is? That's right. Take them to the theatre, drama workshops, music workshops, adventure parks, rock climbing, film-making and I get to go along to all of these, isn't that great?

But, no, really, we are listening to the young people in these environments, offering them something new and trying to improve their experiences in care, using their collective thoughts, expressions and experiences to create by the end, a manifesto. Created by young people in care, for young people in care. It's a very empowering idea. By listening to these young people, we can better understand their experiences and how to improve them, and break the cycle of abuse and neglect which is so common in care leavers.

We'll be making a film of this project and the young people are the driving voice behind it, like a bad movie, they'll be twists and turns down the way, mainly because of my bad driving, they'll be bumps along the road, also my bad driving, but ultimately get these people listened to and respond to it. Wish me luck.

Posted by Andy ( 12:45 PM )
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Friday Aug 20, 2010

Arts and crafts, lunch club and a simple philosophy

Afternoon, just to say hello again after a short hiatus which has been filled with lots of enjoyable volunteering activities, some new volunteers and some new volunteering opportunities for the interested and free from North London. I hope you will spend a little time to read this and then get yourself active with a volunteer role this summer...especially if you are on summer holidays!

Ok, so since the last time I dropped in we have had another successful event at the New Park Day Centre in Highbury. Thanks to the great staff there who provide us with a wonderful working space and the materials to do something good we have been squeezing this opportunity dry. I recently organised a 'Summer Holiday Special' event with the older people who use this centre. The idea was to try and recreate pictures from summer holidays they have been on and commit them to paper – as stylistically as possible.

Unfortunately, for the older people they have me as an example. I have no artistic talent, eye, fingers or flair for art and my example often looks like I've painted a recently tranquilised bear, such is the lack of grace and effeteness that my examples display.

So, these poor people not only have to see my scribblings, but use it as an example, nevertheless, these are talented folk and I will gladly take the glory for anything that looks half decent. "Ah, Iris, good work, couldn't have done it without my example."

Granted, my skills are lacking, but to put enough people in a room and offer them some direction, some guidance and help when talking to older people is what the jist of my volunteering is. If they can create a wonderful piece of art but do not engage, I am disappointing, if it looks slightly psychopathic and disturbing but they had a nice chat about holidays in Spain, then I am happy. That's as simple as my volunteering philosophy gets.

To go along with these monthly-or-so arts & crafts activities, we are also providing regular opportunities for a lunch club twice a week to volunteers. This has helped introduce new volunteers to older people and improve confidence and ability, a young Italian volunteer has been helping out and this has helped improve her English immeasurably whilst creating valuable relationships with older people. We have introduced several new volunteers to this opportunity.

To go along with the ongoing volunteering roles available I am currently in the process of supporting a local film-maker who wants to make a documentary about older people in the area. I have guided and assisted him through this process and we are aiming to film and edit the film in the next couple of months. Once this is finished we will put on an exhibition for the older people who took part and have a nice final product.

I am also developing a new partnership with the Peel Centre who support older people in the community with lunch clubs and activities. I want to develop a current affairs group – along with some younger volunteers we will discuss the news of the week and see if there are contrasting views between the young and the old in their opinions. To accompany this I am looking to start a music appreciation group also with the Peel Centre. This will be playing music from the 1940s & 1950s to the older people and asking them to put down their thoughts, opinions, memories and feelings about this music.

Once again it has been busy as a full-time volunteer and Young at Heart provides lots of opportunities and access for volunteers and older people in the Camden and Islington area, so if you are around and interested please give me an e-mail at youngatheartlondon@hotmail.co.uk and we can get started!

Posted by Andy ( 11:45 AM )
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Thursday Jul 01, 2010

World Cup mascot making

The most recent event I've done, as the world cup is in full swing I decided to do a world cup mascot making event. The Day Centre is full of people with really diverse backgrounds and nationalities which gave the scope to do some really interesting things. The volunteers I took along on that day were from Camden Jobtrain who provide opportunities for young people who are not in education or employment and we gladly place them with these opportunities.

One moment in particular was very striking to me, was when an elderly lady who is blind and deaf in one ear, communicated with a volunteer and worked together to make a Nigeria flag and an ornament. This was extremely cool and rewarding to see as the volunteer was engaging and working out what the elderly ladies ideas were and putting them down on the paper. It was really interesting to see how young people can rise to a very difficult challenge when placed in those situations.

I have recently set up a Digital Workx co-ordination with another voluntary organisation who asked for young volunteers to help older people with computers and the internet. This only started last week but the skills sharing on show was great and the older people had a great time discussing what websites they wanted to visit  (I had an interesting time with an older gentleman showing me a Ugandan news website). It's obviously so good because the older people can keep in contact with distant relatives via e-mail which we helped them set-up. Next thing you know, they're checking out youtube and are just amazed. This was through an organisation called Peabody who have provided some excellent opportunities.

In the pipeline we have an outdoor arts project where volunteers will go out foraging in the woods for materials and then using those materials to make baskets and other decorations. This is a really active project that has attracted a lot of volunteers and the older people will also participate with some skills sharing which is always nice.

And, to keep things ticking over we have our regular lunch clubs. These are set up through other voluntary organisations and then I send along a couple of volunteers to help out. This has proven to be a hit with foreign volunteers who are keen to learn the lingo and the social and historical stories of the local older people. Plus the get a chance to play a bit of bingo and really get to know some of the older people.

The summer months should prove busy with the volunteers getting some time off from college and the general break of the summer holidays to get involved with lots of volunteering projects and opportunities. Hopefully they will be as interesting and fruitful as the last couple of months with Young at Heart.

 

Posted by Andy ( 11:01 AM )
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Monday Apr 26, 2010

friday afternoon at the movies, who cares what picture they make

Hey guys, didn't mean to cause a bru-ha-ha, ruckus or rumpus with my previous blog but gotta ruffle some feathers along the way.

Well, this last week here at CSV has been pretty busy. I've been organising and preparing for my first event with Young at Heart and I must say it went really well. We went to the New Park Day Centre on Friday morning after I'd spent the previous couple of days collecting materials and research from local libraries and a rather uneventful afternoon photocopying.

So the day was set for a balmy, Friday afternoon in Highbury, with the aim to improve intergenerational links within local communities. The event I had planned was a 'Golden Oldies Movie Poster Day'. The aim was to re-create/re-imagine old movie stars and movie posters that the older people would remember fondly and could discuss and create something effective with the materials given. I had also provided a lot of backgrounds to use and classic movie monsters that gave some of the older people a bit of a fright!

In preparation I had recruited 10 volunteers, some of which have been volunteering with Young at Heart since it started and are extremely dedicated and very good when dealing with the older people. I had also invited the project leader for Young at Heart Bedford to come down as he had also only recently started his role with CSV and it was a good idea to create links. We also had 3 excellent volunteers from our brokerage with Camden Jobtrain – they supply us with between 3 and 6 volunteers per event and the 3 we got this time all did so well, despite their lack of volunteering experience and dealing with older people before.

Prior to the event itself I had dedicated a lot of time to the preparation and planning of the event, not just administration (health & safety check, risk assessment, application forms etc) but also creative preparation. It was essential to do this to find out what would work, what wouldn't work and also to discover the best way to create a decent product with the limited and different skills the older people have.

We started at 10:30 leaving plenty of time to go through a few formalities with the volunteers and let them do a couple of examples of posters themselves. I gathered up the volunteers and we went into the main dining room to drum up a bit of enthusiasm and the volunteers were fantastic with the older people. They were chatting to them, introducing themselves and getting them all to come along.

Once the older people were settled in the art room and informed, they happily ploughed on with the arts and crafts, in between they were sharing stories about the pictures with the volunteers and each other, showing the work they did to each other and generally having a merry old time.

I was fortunate enough to be able to sit back, relax and enjoy, chat and observe the project working as well as originally intended. My advice to volunteers is do as much preparation and organisation as possible. Make your own examples, have too much of everything, be prepared. That way, you can actually enjoy the day.

Next up...I'm in the pre-preparation stages of a summer street party in Islington. I've got an idea of a VE day style celebration, celebrating the local areas and having music, food, singing and dancing and a lot of fun. This is excellent to focus on because I will need a lot of volunteers, good ideas and solid commitment. Should be a laugh anyway. Keep it cheesy lemon slices.

Andy

Posted by Andy ( 12:27 PM )
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Monday Apr 12, 2010

Young At Heart

Hello blogosphere, my name's Andy. I'm 22, from Bedford (that's in the county of Bedfordshire) and am a full-time volunteer with CSV (Community Service Volunteers). I graduated from University of Portsmouth in July 2009 in Media Studies. I've kind of stumbled into volunteering albeit stumbling into soft marshmallow stuff, not walls, bricks, roadsigns or parked cars.

The project that I'm running is called Young at Heart, and it's really great. Basically, my job involves getting a bunch of young, active and exciting volunteers aged 16-25 to come and hang out with old people and share talents, skills and cool stuff with the oldies. It's based in London and I am in the office every day making contacts and organising the events that we run. I'm just coming up to my first event and there's a lot of preparation and planning involved.

The event we have coming up is at New Park Day Care Centre in Highbury where the elders can re-create movie posters. I'm going to take loads of photos of old movie stars, all different backgrounds & scenery, let them make up the titles and put it all together! Its gonna be a lorra lorra laughs, as Cilla Black would say.

I got into volunteering at University after having a monumentally fun time whilst hitch-hiking to Amsterdam for Raising and Giving, from then on I presented the RAG radio show (all you RAG & Bone fans out there, HOLLA), and participated in fundraising stuff as well.

Once I graduated at the worst POSSIBLE time for getting a job, I knew I needed to keep myself busy and started volunteering in my local area for the Youth Action Team in Bedford and really enjoyed it, after hearing about CSV through that and finding out about full-time volunteering I got interested, and the bug had well and truly bitten.

There are a lot of aspects to this role, and I'm learning constantly and have met a lot of people who have worked in the voluntary sector for a long time and have excellent advice and knowledge. Islington's a great place to live and I've been very lucky to have been placed on this project and what's also cool is I get to make it my own!

This blog will feature the twists and turns of a full-time volunteer, living in London, running a project, most probably failing and then recovering to see it through. I'm also really interested in getting people involved in this blog so if you guys have ideas for future events that would be suitable for old people, let me know!

Keep it cheesy,

Andy

 

Posted by Andy ( 3:43 PM )
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