How to get involved...
Have a look at vacancies below - if you see anything that interests you, just get in touch!Also - don't forget our programme of one-off volunteering opportunities.
If you live outside of London and would like to volunteer closer to home, get in touch and we can point you in the right direction. We're open throughout the summer to answer your queries.
Please note that our volunteering vacancies are only open to UCL students and staff.
SUMMER VACANCIES
THE CALTHORPE PROJECTADMIN ASSISTANT
The Calthorpe Project is a community garden space located 10 minutes from Kings Cross St Pancras. They are looking for someone to help their Under 5's Drop-In Worker with admin work. The role would be for 2-3 hours per week on a wednesday afternoon. It would entail creating posters, writing letters, taking minutes and typing them up from regular parents meetings and other basic admin work. To find out more, please contact Gaven directly on calthorpe@green-fingers.co.uk
HUE HELP
FUNDRAISING TEAM
Hue Help is a UK based charity. Since its inception in 2006, Hue Help has been working to improve the lives of people in Hue City, Vietnam. With a particular focus on disadvantaged children, Hue Help runs three projects: supporting an orphanage, running a volunteer program and providing a ‘swimming for safety’ programme.
Hue Help is currently recruiting fundraisers for its UK fundraising team. Hue Help is looking for creative, committed, organised individuals to organize fundraising events. Although fundraising experience is preferred, this is not essential. The position is on a voluntary basis, however reasonable expenses will be covered. Fundraising will primarily take place in central London and a commitment of approximately 5 hours a week is required, although this can very depending on when fundraising events are organized.
For more information contact: funding@huehelp.org
KEEN LONDON
COACH
KEEN London is a charity providing sporting and recreational activities for children with special needs and their siblings in the London area. Each volunteer coach is assigned one athlete for a session. As a coach, your job is to enable your athlete to take part in the activities and have a great time. For example, you can make sure your athlete understands the instructions and gets a turn in each game. You will be given a profile card with details of your athlete's abilities as well as lots of helpful coaching hints. The session starts with a warm-up and then the sports and games begin. Some of the games we play include football, basketball, playground games, relay races and much more.
Every activity is lead by an experienced coach who will be happy to lend a hand where its is needed. After the athletes have gone home to their parents, volunteers have a debrief over some food and drink. This is also a chance to discuss the session and get advice from other coaches,if you have any problems, or just to have a laugh and make new friends. You don't need to be very sporty or have experience with children, as training and support will be provided.
KEEN London is always looking for new volunteers – the numbers of children accessing our services increases weekly and we can only take them into the programme if we have sufficient volunteer numbers. Please come along – you are needed and will be made very welcome. We ask for a minimum of only three weekly sessions a term – but most people find they want to come more often than that! KEEN London is great fun! Email Oliver at oliver.peachey@ucl.ac.uk to get in touch today.
CAMDEN COUNCIL
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY PEER ACTIVATORS
Would you like to volunteer to help others in your community? Are you enthusiastic about exercising and using outdoor gyms? Camden Active Health Team are recruiting volunteers to become Physical Activity Peer Activators.
Physical Activity Peer Activators aim to develop a team of volunteers or 'peer activators' (PAPA) to encourage and support the use of outdoor gyms in Camden. As a PAPA you will receive training which will give you the skills, knowledge and confidence to help local people become more active by exercising safely, effectively and independently to achieve health improvements. Interested? Contact oliver.peachey@ucl.ac.uk for more information.
REFUGEE THERAPY CENTRE
MEDICAL STUDENTS FOR MENTORING PROJECT
The Refugee Therapy Centre is looking for enthusiastic, committed medical students from UCL to volunteer for its Mentoring Project. This is a great opportunity for medical students to gain experience of working with refugees and asylum seekers in a mental health setting. Volunteers will get to meet regularly with a senior clinical psychologist for supervision.
Being a mentor involves spending 3 hours a week supporting isolated people with adapting to life in the UK and improving their English language skills.
This is a very rewarding project, which gives you the opportunity to meet people from all over the world and to start changing people’s lives now before you are qualified.
For more info or to get involved, email Oliver Peachey at oliver.peachey@ucl.ac.uk today.
THIRD AGE PROJECT
VOLUNTEER IT TUTOR FOR THE ELDERLY
We are looking for a new Volunteer IT tutor for the elderly here at the Crypt Centre (ten minutes walk from UCL) starting in September 2011.
We usually run one to one 30 minute sessions with older people completely new to computers on Monday afternoons from 2 – 4 pm (a max of 4 people).
A rewarding volunteering position in a friendly informal popular older people’s resource centre near the University!
Email Oliver to find out more – oliver.peachey@ucl.ac.uk
BEATBULLYING
CYBER MENTOR
Fancy Volunteering from the comfort of your own PC? Beatbullying is the UK’s leading bullying prevention charity website. Working in partnership with UCL, we are delighted to offer students and staff aged 18-25 a unique volunteering opportunity.
Underpinned by cutting edge technology, it is a safe website where young people can turn to other young people for help and advice about bullying. Since our launch in March 2009, we’ve helped over 200,000 young people who have come to the site to chat to a CyberMentor. Over a million children and young people get bullied each week in the UK.
If you are aged 18 - 25 and you can give us just 2 hours of your time online each week, you can help to make a huge difference to the lives of young people affected by bullying and discrimination.
As a CyberMentor, you’ll receive first class training and support to help you help thousands of young people from all over the UK. If you’d like to get involved and be trained as a CyberMentor, get some really fantastic skills for your CV, join an ever-growing army of young people who want to help others less fortunate and have access to awards and accreditation for your time, then please get in touch. Email Oliver to find out more – oliver.peachey@ucl.ac.uk
CAMLEY STREET NATURE PARK
ENVIRONMENT EDUCATION VOLUNTEER
Education, food growing, wildlife gardening… Do You Dig It?
Get involved with the Do You Dig It schools education, food-growing and community outreach project at Camley Street Natural Park!
Experience in environmental education, community outreach, practical conservation and scientific surveying….
Food growing using sustainable methods and encouraging beneficial wildlife into your garden.
Training in environmental work, food growing, leadership and planning; great for future careers!
Giving back to the community and improving community growing spaces for people and wildlife in Camden and Islington.
Regular volunteer programme of environment education, practical food growing and conservation sessions and training.
For more information email oliver.peachey@ucl.ac.uk
CAMDEN CITIZENS ADVICE BUREAU
OUTCOMES ADMINISTRATOR – AUTUMN 2011 START
Are you a resourceful and independent individual with good communication skills? Will you still be an UCL student for the 2011-12 academic session? Can you spare a maximum of 5 hours a week for 3 months to join a team measuring the improvement Camden C.A.B. helps clients to achieve through its advice work?
We are looking for computer literate individuals to monitor, enter and interpret data to produce statistical and data reports. These reports will be used in our funding applications to help us expand the service we offer to clients.
Our impact on clients also has an emotional level so you will interview clients or help them complete the surveys by phone or in person at the C.A.B. offices in Central London, Kentish Town and Kilburn.
Training will be offered on two days, provisionally 5th and 11th October.
If you are interested please contact Oliver Peachey on oliver.peachey@ucl.ac.uk.
WEST EUSTON TIME BANK
VOLUNTEERS FOR A FAMILY ACTIVITIES PROGRAMME
We are looking for committed and reliable volunteers to help a local Time Bank run an exciting and wide ranging creative and educational family activities programme on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays during the School Summer Holidays (July/August 2011) at a nearby small community centre on the Regents Park Estate, NW1. If interested please email Oliver on oliver.peachey@ucl.ac.uk.
ASSOCIATION OF JEWISH REFUGEES
INDIVIDUAL BEFRIENDING
We are looking for volunteers to visit elderly AJR members who are refugees and survivors of the Holocaust in their own homes. Many members are frail and often isolated; some have few or no surviving family and are very lonely, so they would be grateful to have your companionship and much-needed assistance. You as a volunteer would make regular visits, be someone to talk to and – depending on the members’ physical state – possibly go on walks or shopping.
Through these visits, our volunteers build rewarding and enduring friendships with survivors and it proves to be an extremely rewarding activity. They are given the privilege of hearing extraordinary stories and the inter-generational bonds that inevitably form ensure the experience of the Holocaust will not be forgotten.
Befrienders visit between 1-3 hours weekly, fortnightly, or even monthly and should commit for at least 3 months. Please email Oliver on oliver.peachey@ucl.ac.uk to get involved.
REACHOUT! SOCCER SCHOOL
MENTOR
ReachOut! is a children's charity, working primarily with boys and girls aged 9-16, aiming to improve academic performance, build character and provide positive role models in the boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets. Our volunteer mentors meet with mentees once a week for 1-2 hours.
At the Soccer School Project mentors support secondary school pupils with academic learning, and then have the opportunity to help out with football coaching afterwards. (Football coaching is optional, we are looking for enthusiastic role models to support young people’s development in the classroom hour!) At the Midweek Mentoring Project mentors work one-to-one with mentees aged 10 and 11 on academic work followed by fun activities and team sports.
To find out more about our projects please email oliver.peachey@ucl.ac.uk today.
MOTOR NEURONE DISEASE ASSOCIATION
ASSOCIATION VISITORS
Association Visitors (AVs) have a vital part to play in supporting people affected by motor neurone disease - both those with the disease and those close to them. They offer free and confidential emotional support, and information about the Association and other services that helps people to make informed choices, this can be through emails, telephone support or face to face contact. This helps to reduce the sense of isolation many people affected by the disease experience.
AVs are mostly home based with some local travel, they are CRB checked as they work closely with those the law deems “vulnerable adults” and they also attend four training days, usually spread over a couple of months before they can take up the role. We look for our volunteers to commit for between 12-18mths volunteering and give a guideline of around 2-4 hours per week. The next training course starts in September – to take things forward with the application process, email oliver.peachey@ucl.ac.uk today.
DISABILITY IN CAMDEN (DISC)
VOLUNTEER BEFRIENDERS
Disability in Camden (DISC) are looking for volunteer befrienders to provide support and encouragement to an isolated or vulnerable disabled person in Camden. The aim is to increase the service users’ confidence and independence by supporting them to access social activities, or to simply provide some companionship.
Duties will vary depending on the service user’s needsYou may besupporting a disabled person to go to the gym, the library or even a college class. You may just be required to meet for a cup of tea, or a walk round the park.
No previous experience is required. However, befrienders need to have the ability to build up a relationship with a disabled adult and to respect the boundaries of the befriending relationship. You must be able to respect and maintain privacy, be reliable, but above all be a good communicator with the ability to understand and be sensitive to others needs. If you would like to find out more, please email oliver.peachey@ucl.ac.uk.