feature: Any volunteers?
28 May 2008
Volunteers keep our community together and get a lot back in return. So if you’ve got some time on your hands, why not get involved?
These days volunteering goes well beyond the traditional idea of working in a charity shop.
“There’s a huge range of jobs that volunteers can do,”
says Andrew Mackie from Haringey
Volunteer Centre, which placed 80 volunteers last year, and has an extra £40,000 from the council for its work this year.
“Everyone has got some knowledge or experience that can be useful.”
Volunteering helps people get the skills they need for paid work, and keeps people active and involved if they are older or socially excluded in some way.
Volunteering also gives a new dimension to public services by adding the frontline experience that local people can bring, and helps create a strong, cohesive community.
“Volunteers are the unsung heroes in our community. The Council will do it all can to encourage and support them”
says Cllr Lorna Reith, cabinet member for community cohesion and involvement.
|back to topA volunteer’s story
Ellen Bonsoe from Northumberland Park was working in a high street shop but was looking for career development and something more meaningful.
She started volunteering for Haringey Association of Voluntary and Community Organisations itself, helping new community groups get established. Now she has a full time job with the organisation.
“The experience I gained as a volunteer was fantastic, and really helped me get into the work I wanted to do.
|back to top”You are giving something, and you are getting something back. It is really positive. I would encourage anyone to volunteer.”
What can I do?
Charitable and voluntary organisations need help with office work, advice-giving, advocacy, direct work with clients, driving and more, as well as management committee members or trustees.
Tenants’ and residents’ groups, friends of parks groups, after-school clubs, youth groups and sports clubs rely on volunteers, and schools welcome help in the classroom and on activities.
Then there’s school governors, youth offender panel members, prison visitors, “appropriate adult” schemes assisting young or vulnerable people in police stations and “expert patient” schemes where patients help others with the same condition.
Or you could even stand for the council!
You can find out about volunteering opportunities across the borough from the Haringey Volunteer Centre. Call 020 8880 4084, email am@havcoharingey.org.uk or see the Haringey Volunteer Centre website (external link).
The centre also helps organizations looking to recruit volunteers, and provides training, help and advice on managing volunteers.
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