For Volunteers’ Week, we’ve started to look back at a busy 2016-17 volunteering year here at Warwick. This is the second part of our highlights of the year. Click here to find out what happened in Term1.
This week is Volunteers’ Week, a national celebration of volunteers in the UK. We wouldn’t miss that opportunity to say once again THANK YOU to all the amazing student volunteers at Warwick and to those who helped make their volunteering possible!
To celebrate, let’s look back at 2016-17!
I am a second year Undergraduate student studying English Literature at Warwick. I have always been really interested in volunteering, having previously volunteered in a charity shop and in primary schools. Along with volunteering through the English Department to teach literature at a school in Coventry, I was also really interested in helping out with the homeless in Leamington. Living in Leamington Spa currently, it is clear that help is needed, and looking through the Warwick Volunteers site I found out about the Leamington Night Shelter and was keen to know a lot more about the charity itself!
This week’s Project Spotlight is on Bake It Up, which aims to improve the self-esteem of young people by allowing them to get creative in the kitchen and achieving something they can be proud of. Volunteers run two after school clubs, which enable participants to develop new skills, learn to work as a team and gain knowledge about various ingredients and foods.
Today is University Mental Health and Wellbeing Day, the perfect opportunity to introduce here on the blog one of our new one-off project, which proved very successful in improving students’ wellbeing: Dogs Trust Kenilworth. Jenny, who organises this project, is telling us more about one of their sessions.
A few weeks ago, after having had an assignment for my dissertation at the start of term 2 put an enormous amount of pressure and stress on my shoulders, I decided to take advantage of the subsequently more relaxed period, and got involved in some volunteering. I chose Kenilworth Phab, a volunteering project I had heard a lot about, but had never volunteered with. My choice could not have been better.
