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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Friday Feb 24, 2012

The nuts and bolts of student volunteering

For my final Student Volunteering Week blog post, I am going to focus on the practical issues of what you should look for in a volunteering placement, and how to go about finding one.  This process may be either easy or difficult, depending on whether you know what you want to do, or know where you wish to volunteer.

Unless you already know where you are going to volunteer, a typical starting point is to go and find a placement, which you can do online or in person. Online there are many great places to find volunteering opportunities, including www.do-it.org.uk and www.vinspired.com, the latter who work with 14-25 year olds. You can also visit your local Volunteer Centre, which can offer advice on what might be best for you as well as helping you find a role.

However, if you are a student one of the best ways of getting support is to go through a university or college volunteering service. These are typically based in your students’ union or careers service and are able to broker placements with different organisations, help you with any problems, and even help you articulate the value of your volunteering when applying for jobs.

It’s important when seeking out a volunteering placement to go for something that interests you and that you are likely to keep up. If you are not likely to make the necessary commitment both you and the voluntary organisation will lose out.

Once you have found an attractive role and have negotiated any registration processes, you should feel properly supported whilst volunteering. Typically you should have a person to talk to about how things are going. Many roles offer as training or additional responsibility, which are great for students seeking opportunities for personal development or to boost their employability.

Stavroula Konidari, Student Activities Coordinator at London Metropolitan University says, ‘Student volunteers appreciate flexibility in the time commitment volunteering demands… They also might require training if they lack professional experience hence also needing more supervision.’

As a student, the time you can offer may vary depending on coursework, exams, and vacations, so it is important that the organisation understands your availability and has flexible volunteering opportunities.

Being a student comes with a steep learning curve. Students, especially those moving away from home for the first time, are not always aware of local issues and situations so it is important to try and develop an understanding. Indeed, gaining an insight into the lives of others outside of the student bubble was one of the best parts of my volunteering experience as a student.

My last word of advice would be to go out, have fun and enjoy your volunteering!

Posted by Oli Gregory ( 11:13 AM )
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Wednesday Feb 22, 2012

Student Volunteering Week 2012: The value of volunteering.

Student Volunteering Week 2012, is a campaign that stresses the value of volunteering, for both communities and volunteers. Volunteering is constantly being touted as a way of improving your CV and boosting your employability skills. This is true as research has shown that 83% of students who volunteer feel that it has increased their general employability. 51% of recent graduates under 30 who are in paid work saying that volunteering helped them to find a job. I can vouch from my own personal experiences, as the skills I have learnt whilst volunteering at university have given me the skills that I use everyday in my job working on Student Volunteering Week.

However, whilst the employability agenda is perhaps the most obvious way to talk about the personal benefits of student volunteering, particularly in the current economic climate, it only reveals a part of the picture. I believe that student volunteering can be an individually as well as socially transformative. Volunteering whilst at college or university exposes you to so many different experiences and a diverse range of people. It is this diversity that may invite you to try new things, place you in new or challenging situations, and generally offers an alternative perspective on the world.

Amy Anderson Support Officer for the OxfordHub argues that volunteering ‘exposes students to a diverse range of people and allows them to build networks beyond their own peers. The challenges that this diversity might bring about develops resilience and flexibility, soft skills…

My own experiences back this up, as volunteering in so many different scenarios, from working with children to campaigning at a national level, have equipped me with much greater confidence, social and leadership skills than I believe I would have got through any other experience.

The message to draw from this is that volunteering through meeting both social and personal needs enables students to not just become employable individuals but true citizens. In my next Student Volunteering Week blog for Do-It I will discuss how students can find quality volunteering placements.

Posted by Oli Gregory ( 6:13 PM )
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Tuesday Feb 21, 2012

Student volunteering week

This week is Student Volunteering Week 2012! The week celebrates the contribution that thousands of students to their communities. Research demonstrates the size of this contribution, with over 63% of students taking part in some form of formal volunteering whilst at university. This amounts to over 3 million hours given by students to their communities every year.

I am a passionate advocate of student volunteering because I believe that it is personally and socially transformative. Being a student is a formative time with opportunities for personal development through trying new thing; and challenges about being employable, or even knowing what you want from life. Volunteering alone won't solve these challenges! However, it can provide some of the most valuable experiences you can have as a student, enabling you to develop yourself whilst creating a wider social good.

This year's theme is 'Back to Basics: Community Roots', and highlights the sheer variety of ways that students contribute to their communities. Student volunteering can include the things you might expect such as working in a charity shop or school, to activities you might not such as helping run a student society or sports team.

As a former student volunteer myself I have volunteered in many different ways, from helping to organise a residential holiday for 'at risk' young children, working as a teaching assistant in a South African primary school, to fundraising on the Tube whilst dressed as Peter Pan. My experiences have changed me as a person, giving me greater insight, skills and confidence that I use in my everyday life.

There is no single way to volunteer; your volunteering could be an informal one off activity, or a sustained long-term commitment. It is not how you volunteer that matters, but whether a volunteering opportunity meets both your own needs and the needs of the wider community.  

Keep following the do-it blog for more reasons for students to volunteer, and top tips for finding quality volunteering placements. 

Oli Gregory is a campaigner working on Student Volunteering Week 2012, a Volunteering England campaign sponsored by Santander.

 

Posted by do-it blog admin ( 10:13 AM )
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Monday Feb 13, 2012

Penpals and Prisoners

I was a teenager by the time the internet 'appeared' and began it's worldwide domination of communicatory methods. Prior to the installation of our very first super-slow dial up modem I actually used to write letters to people. Letters, you remember those don't you? Thin wafers of wood product that you etch weird swirly symbols onto with squid puke then emblazon with the Queens bonce and feed into a quirky little red box in the middle of the street? I know I know, it's a long time ago now isn't it, email has revolutionised the world and made communication with the other side of the globe an instantaneous event. But it's such a shame. Back in my tween years I loved spending time writing letters to my penpals (which were usually acquired through music fanclubs or the like) and the thrill of getting home from school to find a letter for ME was just immense!

I'm an adult now (allegedly). I've been using the internet for half of my entire life and am so used to it now I find it quite difficult to function without it - a lot of my university studies are done online, a lot of my dayjob requires constant emailing and if I'm struggling to remember the name of the fella who directed such-and-such film then I have the IMDB app at the touch of a button (or rather, the swipe of a touchscreen). I would never have imagined that some 16 years after switching to emails I'd regress and get myself a penpal again but that's just what I've done.

I learned a couple of months ago about a company called Prisoners Abroad who deal with care and support for British citizens being held in overseas prisons. Having just signed up with The Open University for a BSc in Criminology and Psychological Studies to enrich and enhance my MA in Social Policy research I'm clearly interested in the issues surrounding crime and how it is dealt with by policy makers so the charity was of instant interest to me. Their offices are based in London so that ruled out any real hands on involvement on my part, however they run a penpal scheme which encourages regular communication with prisoners who might have no other link to the outside world. The scheme is free (unlike some others I came across) and is dealt with in a very safe and professional way. All correspondence from your penpal comes to you via the London office so your address is never disclosed and they try to match you up with a penpal who has similar interests to you (easy for someone like me who is interested in everything!).

I sent off my application form before Christmas and was delighted to be matched with someone just last week. I've already written my first letter and it's winging it's way over the ocean waves as I type. My introduction letter was a babbling nonsense of me trying to establish that I'm willing to write as much or little as they want and will happily write about almost anything. I think at one point I made the assumption that my matched penpal wouldn't even WANT to write back to me *rolls eyes at self-image*. I eagerly await a reply from my new found friend and hope that they appreciate and accept the time and eagerness I have for this.

It's not a typical kind of volunteering is it. I like it though; it takes very little time and I imagine the isolation and loneliness some of these prisoners feel is unbearable so a letter once or twice a month with a bit of chit chat and human contact must help relieve that sense of loneliness which can only be exacerbated if you're in prison in a country which doesn't speak your language and plays by completely different punishment rules to your homeland. I'm pleased I came across the Prisoners Abroad website, I like what they're about and I like the way they go about it, so if you fancy dusting off the old pen and paper and embracing snail mail once again, how about becoming a prisoners penpal.

Posted by Carrie Anne Walton ( 2:45 PM )
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