Preston Volunteers has had a busy year since its launch as Preston City’s go-to volunteering hub. In the intervening time, the service has supported over 150 organisations across Preston to make recruiting new volunteers easier, improve the experience for people volunteering with them and ensure Preston is a place where everyone can volunteer.
To help make volunteering more accessible, the team at Preston Volunteers have recently launched a new project offering support to people seeking asylum in the city to help them find meaningful volunteering placements. Working closely with Preston City Council, the project aims to remove cultural and linguistic barriers, reduce isolation and improve the health and well-being of sanctuary seekers through the benefits of volunteering.
The Support into Volunteering Buddy Project aims to overcome these barriers by pairing participants from asylum backgrounds with bilingual volunteers who can help them to access volunteer roles that would otherwise prove difficult get involved in without support.
Project Support Worker, Joseph Cooper, said:
“We’re really pleased to be given this funding to support Sanctuary Seekers into volunteering. We know through research and feedback from Sanctuary Seekers, that people from these groups are often among the most marginalised, hidden and excluded people in our society.
“Volunteering is a fantastic way of helping people feel more connected to where they live, form friendships, contribute to their local communities and helps people to improve their mental health and wellbeing, while going through the Asylum process.”
He added,
“Volunteering is one of the few things Sanctuary Seekers are permitted to do. It can offer them valuable experiences and contacts for when they are able to fully live and work here in the UK.”
Preston Volunteers are now on the hunt for a team of enthusiastic and committed ‘Buddy’ volunteers, over 18 years old, who are bilingual in one or more of the following languages: Arabic, Kurdish, Pashto, Persian or Tigrinya, in addition to having a high level of spoken English.
Volunteers will accompany participants from asylum backgrounds to volunteer with local community organisations and charities for a few hours a week. Full training and expenses are provided.
This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a great new project with Preston Volunteers and will help continue Preston’s tradition as a welcoming and inclusive city for all.
Alternatively, you can contact Joseph: –
