National Student Volunteering Week 2009 -
Monday February 23rd to Sunday March 1st 2009
Student Volunteering Week was started in 2001 originally to coincide with International Year of Volunteers. It has now become an annual fixture in the student volunteering movement as well as the wider voluntary sector.
The week is a chance to raise the national profile of student volunteers by promoting and celebrating local student groups. Around the country universities and colleges put on special events and volunteering projects to reward current volunteers and recruit new ones!
Student Volunteering Week 2008 was action packed. Alongside all the great projects and events that universities and colleges organised, Volunteering England hosted a range of activities to raise the profile of student volunteering. A full report will be available on this page soon.
What can you do at your university or college?
Decide what you want to get out of the week:
- Recruiting more volunteers?
- Thanking or rewarding the volunteers you have?
- Raising the profile of what you already do (for the press / locally / in your institution)?
- Launching a new project or idea?
- Increasing your volunteers’ skills through development?
- To work with other departments e.g. sports, psychology, the SU?
- Encouraging student led projects?
Then decide the best way to do this (this list isn’t exhaustive!):
- Hold a re-fresher’s fair: great for recruiting new students and getting your existing volunteers to promote the work they do
- Host an awards evening: reward your current volunteers for the difference they make
- Invite your community partners on campus: let your local organisations or service users see where your students study – throw a tea party or give campus tours!
- Have a PARTY: thank your students for all the great work they do.
- Have a one day or week long focused theme: e.g. you might want an employability theme and run sessions on transferable skills from volunteering.
- Launch a new project: great for recruiting student leaders and volunteers.
- Host a one off project: these are great for local press and can get students and the local community working together with big impact.
- Focus your activities around SVN: work with other universities and colleges in your region, this can be done through our student volunteer’s network.
- Join up with clubs and societies: this is a good time to pool resources and let others see the value of volunteering
- Target academic departments: create a menu of subject specific volunteering opportunities and target those departments.
Volunteer-involving organisations
If you think that your charity or organisation would like to promote what you do, offer more volunteering opportunities or work with universities or colleges to create a special event or project for SV week contact svevents@volunteeringengland.org.
We will email out general information to volunteer coordinators or put you in touch with the right people local to your organisation.
