If staff want to, they can take 1 day a year to volunteer for a cause of their choice. This can be split over several days or taken in a whole day.
All volunteering must be recorded and reported back - we love sharing what you've achieved and it's an important part of our impact reporting!
Please try to take photos (or videos) to help us share examples of the wonderful work you do for the community and local environment.
What could you do?
Work with animals
- dog walking and kennel duties
- looking after injured animals
- working at a community farm
- monitoring local wildlife
- working with stray and feral cats
- helping at the zoo
You can also volunteer for roles which don't involve working with animals, for example, organising events or with photography and fundraising.
Volunteer for a community project
You can make a difference in your local area by donating just a few hours each week. From helping with a community-based recycling scheme through to providing support over local health issues, there are many ways to help.
Many local projects also offer 'commitment free' options for people with limited time. For example, if you have a free day one weekend, you can go to a footpath clearance project and spend a few hours helping out. No pre-existing skills or training are required and everyone 'mucks in' with the tasks.
Sports volunteering
You don't need to be good at the sport in which you wish to volunteer. Some of the most important attributes include enthusiasm and interest.
- Coaching
- Administration
- Officiating
- Committee work
- Organising events and competitions
Your sports organisation should put you through any qualifications that you need to carry out your role.
Volunteering in hospitals
Contact your local Health and Social Care Trust and ask about hospital volunteering opportunities. Your local Trust is the organisation that runs healthcare services in your area.
There are many roles open to volunteers. Some involve working with hospital staff, while others involve spending time with patients. For example, you might help staff with administrative tasks or you might sit with a patient during an eye operation. Often volunteers spend time talking to patients who don’t have friends or family members to visit them.
Green volunteering
There are different ways to get involved through volunteering, including community work and initiatives such as:
- wildlife conservation
- environmental education projects
- supporting international aid work
- recycling
- taking part in your nearest community group which works on environmental or global issues
Teaching
There are boundless opportunities to become a volunteer teacher. With English as the lingua franca, there is always a huge demand for volunteer English teachers worldwide.
Volunteer teachers are responsible for taking classes, preparing lesson plans, assigning tasks to students, administering tests, grading student work and making learning English fun and engaging for both adults and children.
Counselling
For those looking to pursue a career in counselling, volunteering while studying is a great way to put your studies into practice and gain real-world experience and contacts. Working on a voluntary basis will provide you with vital skills which will be invaluable for your career path in this rapidly expanding field.
Common volunteer work for people with counselling training may be offering compassionate support to crime victims, people struggling with mental health issues, grief counselling, domestic and family issues or during criminal justice proceedings.
Sporting events
Major sporting events all rely on volunteers to help them deliver incredible experiences. Volunteers are often the ‘magic makers’ that create a positive environment that drives participants, guests and volunteers to return year after year.
This sort of volunteering work would appeal to the types of volunteers who want to get a behind-the-scenes look at how large scale events run. Sporting event volunteering is a popular type of volunteer work for high school students or university students committed to ensuring participants and spectators have a memorable time.
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