If you think students spend all their spare time avoiding studying, going out with their mates and having a good time then you'd be right. Well our student bloggers do anyway. While they assure us they don't slack on the study, they've got a lot to answer for when it comes to enjoying themselves while volunteering.

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Saturday Jan 31, 2009

Volunteering in 2009

So the UK has entered its first recession since 1991, and the Guardian is providing us with an exciting timeline of the 'mounting job losses', which are creating the highest UK unemployment level since 1997. Considering we all survived the 1990s the papers may be over-exaggerating the impending financial doom a little, but as jobs are undoubtedly being lost and with 'thrift' the word of the month, the position of the voluntary 'Third Sector' is certain to change.

In fact this change is already happening, but it is happening in two different ways. As unemployment rises the voluntary sector benefits as the government looks to keep people learning new skills, interacting with other people, and most importantly for them: away from the effects of long-term unemployment.

Labour has already announced plans for employers to be paid £2,500 for every person they recruit and train that was previously unemployed for over six months but as well as this, a government white paper also outlined that 'a new full-time structured vocational volunteering programme is being created'. For more coverage check Kate Bowgett's blog at volunteermanagers.org.uk.

As the government is seemingly only able to bail-out banks and big businesses, volunteer advice centres also stand to receive increased state funding as the government seeks to rely on them to sort out the people's problems. The government has already announced increased funding for the Citizen's Advice Bureau to deal with the increase of debt problems.

On the other hand it is common sense that in periods of financial uncertainty, people spend less. If you're saving money the non-essentials are the first to go; the result is that many voluntary organisations which are dependent on donations will begin to suffer in the downturn. I know from my own experience on the voluntary radio show Sheffield Live (93.2fm) that businesses are also less likely to support the third sector if they worried about cutting costs.

Similar themes appear in Richard Gutch's article in the Guardian – 'Tough times for the third sector'

So voluntary organisations may face a mixed future in 2009, but it is also clear that it is now that we will need them the most – to support those in need (Rethink, Shelter etc.) and to provide the public with an outlet for edification and creativity (Do-It, VSO, etc.)

Harry.

 

Posted by Harry ( 1:25 AM )
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Thursday Jan 08, 2009

Happy New Year: Wishing you bail-outs and not bankruptcies!

 

So Christmas and New Year are out of the way, and we are now faced with the 2009 calendar, full of little empty white boxes waiting to be filled in.

  I have been living back in Scarborough over this Christmas break and unfortunately I haven’t being doing much volunteering over the past few weeks. I started to practice the art of student-laziness-during-holiday-periods. To counter the huge amount of work I managed to do over term-time, obviously......

  However, my local Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB) re-opened their doors on 5 January and I have been volunteering there over the past few days. I am still training to be an adviser, but finally I can see some kind of progression and I am enjoying it so much more because of this.

Every now and then at the CAB you stumble upon little trinkets of surprising information which enlighten you to one aspect of the world.

This week I was looking up Attachment of Earning’s Orders – which is basically where the government gets a court judgment allowing them to take money directly out of a person’s income, through that person’s employer. This is in order for that person to repay any debts owed to the government (for instance Council Tax arrears).

The catch comes where a person has been making payments through his/her employer for some time, but then his/her employer ceases to trade and therefore cannot make more payments to the government.

In such instances some local authorities may apparently argue that the client has to start from the beginning again, repaying all the money that s/he has already repaid, as well has the rest. A re-re-payment.

Who said the government wasn’t draconian?  

  Unfortunately I cannot talk too much about what I have been doing there, as the service is completely confidential, but If you’d like to help advising people with problems such as this then I am sure most bureaux would be more than happy to train new advisers, with some opportunities listed on the do-it database, and further information on the CAB website.

 In the Scarborough Bureau, and I assume nationwide, there has been a big increase in the amount of clients coming in to the CAB with debt problems, often caused by the backlash from the current economic climate, so the more volunteers the better.

 

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Anyway, I’ll be returning to the icy cold of my student house in Sheffield next week and I am looking forward to continuing my volunteering back in South Yorkshire. It’s interesting to have almost two different lives in two different places.

Despite this, I will probably be cutting a figure of considerable rancour throughout the next four weeks, whilst my exams and the lack of heat conspire to break any springtime optimism I may be encountering.

Have a good 2009.

Posted by Harry ( 5:22 PM )
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