Let's celebrate student volunteers!
Each week tens of thousands of students give up their time to give back to the communities around them and the support they offer is invaluable. So it’s time to celebrate the impact they have and to encourage more to experience the benefits volunteering brings…
The Student Volunteering Network (SVN) is a peer support network that exists to support all forms of student volunteering activity. This year, from 7th – 13th February, SVN will hold its 21st Student Volunteering Week - a national celebration of what volunteers contribute and gain through donating their time .
The week creates a unique opportunity for schools, colleges and community projects to recruit more student volunteers as well as to showcase their own interesting volunteering projects to get involved with. It also provides the chance to gain inspiration from hundreds of innovative student volunteering projects across the UK, so if you’re looking to ramp up your own volunteering projects this year, why not check out the dedicated Student Volunteering Week Twitter account here, to be inspired with ideas?
We certainly couldn’t run the depth or breadth of projects we do without our student volunteers and find that they often create unique connections with younger students. Across projects including our Role Models, Black Asian and Minority Ethnic Mentoring and Peer Coaches programmes students advise, mentor and guide younger students helping them successfully negotiate educational and life challenges and milestones and complex progression pathways.
In doing so, they not only provide invaluable support, they also gain at a personal level. Our student volunteers tell us that taking part in projects helps them grow in confidence, learn new skills and stand out in college, university and work applications. Many also credit volunteering with positively impacting their wellbeing and sense of personal value.
With volunteering being such a win-win for all involved, why not check out some of our student volunteering case studies to gain some inspiration?
- Find out how student volunteers help younger students tackle complex life challenges through our Role Models programme here.
- See an example of the kinds of supportive collateral made by our Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority peer mentors here.
- Hear students at East Sussex College talk about what it has meant to them to be part of the Go Further project’s Peer Coaching scheme here.
If you’d like to find out how to get your students involved, contact our programme manager Debra Vice-Holt by clicking here.