Did you know that volunteer numbers in Scotland have stayed the same for the last 10 years?
A decade ago big chunky waist belts were in fashion, Flo Rida’s Low was number one and the first iPhone had just been released – things change and people move on. However, the same can’t be said for the number of people volunteering in Scotland.
We want to change that. We need your help to work out what will get more people in Scotland volunteering. Although volunteer numbers in general have been in decline, youth volunteering has been increasing – so we think you can help us change the future of volunteering in Scotland.
Thanks to Scottish Government funding we’re working alongside Young Scot to develop a National Youth Development Volunteering Team (NYDVT). We are looking for 25 young people aged between 14 and 25 to join a team that will develop a range of recommendations to help the government ensure there are more people volunteering in 2028.
There are so many great things about volunteering; – you get to meet new people, develop your skills, gain experience, make a difference in your local community and have fun. We’ve been working with volunteers for over 10 years and our volunteers in that time have racked up over three million volunteer hours.
We want to take our experience and combine it with the experiences of young people to help encourage more people across Scotland to volunteer. At the heart of all of our work are the voices and experiences of young people – as the future generation, we can’t do this without you.
Interested?
Great! This is a fantastic opportunity for any young person who is keen to get involved in volunteering, get experience working alongside government and/or creating strategies – and we’ll make sure you have lots of fun along the way. No previous experience is required in order to join to the group, so don’t worry if you’re not a volunteer.
What’s involved? Well, you’ll be asked to attend three residential events and three one-day events over the next six months. You will also be given some small tasks to do outside of these meetings and we will keep in touch via an app called Basecamp (don’t worry we’ll give you training if you’ve not used it before). All your travel, accommodation and other project related expenses will be covered for this project.
Once the project is complete, members of the NYDVT will be given the opportunity to stay involved in the project and continue to promote the benefits of volunteering and the key findings of your joint work.
The deadline for applying is 31 May. If you’d like to get involved, please sign up by completing the online form. If you would prefer to submit your application as a video or by completing a Word document, or if you have any questions at all, please contact the Young Scot co-design team on email at [email protected] or by phone on 0131 313 2488.
Paul Reddish is chief executive of ProjectScotland
