Looking to Get Vinvolved?
Vinvolved provides volunteering opportunities for young people
Vinvolved is a relatively new service that began in April ’08 and has been set up for an initial 3 yr period to provide a range of Volunteering opportunities for 16-25 yr olds. The service is managed by Herefordshire Council Voluntary Youth Service (HCVYS) and Herefordshire Voluntary Action (HVA) both of which already do lots of great work throughout Herefordshire. John Williams is the Development Manager for the project and works alongside James who is the Youth Volunteer Adviser. John came to Youth Times to speak to me about what exactly Vinvolved can offer.
“My job tends to be working with organisations and James’s is working with young people but I enjoy doing youth work and James is very good at working with organisations so we overlap quite a lot” says John.
Vinvolved is a £75 million countrywide funded project which aims to inspire half a million 16-25yr olds to volunteer over the next 3 years. There are 170 Vinvolved teams countrywide and each team recruits a minimum of 200 young people every year. If you are 16-25 and want to gain some experience or just want to help out in some way there are loads of opportunities for you to get involved with local businesses/charities. Volunteering can be very rewarding and provides crucial support for organisations that might otherwise not be able to reach their full potential.
“We hope that lots of organisations will benefit from what we do, our aim is to work with individual organisations to enable them to work effectively with young volunteers” says John.
Volunteer jobs range from conservation work to administration assistant and many organisations offer training on the job. 50 young people from Hereford have already signed up this September through recruitment desks at the sixth form college. Vinvolved are now registered with Asdan so from January ‘09 If you volunteer through Vinvolved and do a minimum of 50 hrs volunteering you could also gain Asdan accreditation and a certificate to recognise all your hard work. V cash point is a scheme provided by the project that offers up to £2500 for young people to do their own work / run events. Ideas are submitted to and awarded by a group of young people from Herefordshire.
To find out more about volunteering and other opportunities available to you log onto
www.vinspired.com or email james@herefordshireeva.org
Other Links:
www.herefordshireeva.org
www.herefordshirecvys.org
