Volunteers for Change
Who are Volunteers for Change?
Volunteer for Change based and managed by Barton Hill Settlement has two projects including the Volunteer Unit and Time for Action community time bank. Both aim to improve the quality of volunteering opportunities, make access much easier and making sure volunteering is an uplifting experience for all local residents.
The Volunteer Unit
The Volunteer Unit matches local volunteers to projects, provides access to support, training and personal development opportunities and assists local people to engage with their community through decision-making bodies.
Time for Action (Time Bank)
The Time for Action community time bank is a place where local residents, volunteers and neighbors become the "givers and the takers' by helping each other with various activities such as; DIY; A companion for exercise; Gardening; A trip to the shops; Painting and decorating; Listening; Dog walking; Befriending; Arts and Crafts; Sports; Music; Collecting a prescription. People then can exchange their skills for the skills what they want.
When and why did you start up?
We started the Volunteers for Change project initially as partnership between Barton Hill Settlement and Community at Heart. We wanted to co-ordinate our efforts to reach all volunteers in the area and not duplicate work and to pull our resources together.
How many Volunteers do you work with each year?
On average about 150 per year; Age range from 16 to 97; with people from different ethnic backgrounds which reflects the East Bristol community.
What type of people volunteer?
All types! Some want to get back into the swing of things again after going through personal situations in their lives. Others are looking for a fresh start and want to try out different skills for a career change. Some have jobs and simply want to get involved with their community. Volunteers have moved onto jobs or other voluntary sector agencies as a result of volunteering, which is good for the sector.
How does your organisation benefit the wider community?
We link local people to local voluntary opportunities, bringing obvious benefits for individuals and the community. Volunteers are encouraged to be active on community decision-making bodies.
Helping people into employment, through hands on experience and training is an important function that benefits the community. People left on the margins of any community can only be detrimental to that community or city. We improve the social skills of some volunteers, who may have experienced a certain amount of marginalisation. Their self-confidence may be low through different (and harrowing) life experiences. We can give people the space and nurture them into a situation where they may stand on their own two feet. Sometimes people can go through agencies too quickly and feel they are cut lose to deal with finding work and struggle.
Do you belong to any partnerships?
We work primarily as a partnership between Barton Hill settlement and Community at Heart. Employment Links. Part of our conference on 4 June, is to explore number of partnerships in the East Bristol area. But our main partnership is with people.
What are your Future plans?
- Improvement of volunteering infrastructure support to projects/organisations working in the East Bristol area.
- The learning for Change training weekend for Volunteers will be held in June 2004 this will involve training on essential volunteering and community development skills for volunteers.
- This will be a pathway to the Open College Network "Skills for Community Change" a Level 3 accredited course. This training has been developed in conjunction with Barton Hill Settlement Workshop.
- Volunteers Forum a self-help support forum for volunteers will continue to flourish with the introduction of the People Support Network and the Volunteers Social Club.
Volunteers need to have time out to reflect and have fun too!
Who are your funders?
We have a number of funders including Community at Heart; LloydsTSB for the Time for Action (Time Bank) project. Two of our funders, Active Communities Unit and Garfield Western Foundation, were so impressed by a recent showcase put on by our volunteers decided to fund us to the tune of £32,000 and £25,000. We have funding from the Greater Bristol Foundation to do our Learning Curve Weekends (see volunteer profiles)
What do you get out of being a member of Voscur?
Being a member of Voscur we benefit in a number of ways:
- Voscur leads the way on volunteering issues;
- a good networking body, bringing allot of voluntary organisations together, eg. Cnet and the various networks;
- delivers some good training;
- a good way to find what’s going on in community and voluntary circles;
- diverse areas such as food and transport ;
- good publications and directories.
How can people get in contact with you?
Get in touch with David Martin on Tel. 0117 9556971 or 9038235.
email: dave.martin@ndcbristol.co.uk or davem@bartonhillsettlement.org.uk
Time for action: Laura Murgatroyd on Tel. 0117 9556971.
If your group would like to be profiled in a future Voscur newsletter or on our website, please contact Darron Thevarajah at the Voscur office Tel. 909 9949, or email: darron@voscur.org