Today is International Volunteer Day and we would like use the opportunity to praise those who donate their valuable time to our cause.
Blog by Gün Orgun, Volunteer Development Coordinator
“Thank you for supporting our work by offering to volunteer with us.”
I seem to be using this sentence over and over again these days to thank the multitude of people who generously offer their time, skills and energy to support our work.
It’s good to remind ourselves that a volunteer for Scottish Refugee Council is, first and foremost, a supporter of our cause – building a better future with refugees in Scotland.
Essential volunteers
We have 76 volunteers – compared to fifty some members of staff – supporting our work at the moment, and we are well aware that we couldn’t carry out many of our functions without their contribution.
Here are just a few examples: from the moment you step into our office at the ‘interesting’ end of Cadogan Street, volunteers will welcome you at reception; some provide face to face advice to asylum seekers and refugees; some do a sterling job helping organise events such as our annual Roller Disco; volunteers have been critical to the creation and delivery of our recent performance event, A View from Here; some help out in our busy communications team, and some help our finance and administration functions – really, the list is practically endless, and we simply don’t know how we would function without them.
What is it really like to volunteer for us?
Well, we like to think that it’s fun, fast-paced and colourful, and that it will get your brain cells activated. The word is probably out by now, that our volunteer roles are demanding – because our work is – and we like to think this is an attractive quality for the kind of people who are the right fit at Scottish Refugee Council. We ask volunteers to commit one day (or two half days) per week for a six month stretch, and we put them through a rigorous induction and training period that should benefit any cv, so that they get something out of the time spent here as well.
I really couldn’t put it better than a former volunteer did in a blog last year:
“If you join the Scottish Refugee Council you will not be a tea-maker, a filing-cabinet filler or an office-sweeper. From the word go you are part of a team that treats you like one of them. You feel valuable, because you are.”
Volunteering asylum seekers and refugees
We also actively support asylum seekers and refugees into volunteering positions at Scottish Refugee Council. This means we put thought into the particular skills, including language skills, that service users can bring into our organisation, and we create roles that take into account the barriers asylum seeker and refugee volunteers may be facing.
Let us emphasise here that, as a result of recent advocacy work, the Home Office has confirmed that asylum seekers at all stages of the asylum process (including post-refusal) now legally can volunteer for all public, non-profit and voluntary organisations.
We do our best to spread the volunteering word to the refugees and asylum seekers who use our services through our (volunteer-organised and volunteer-run) monthly volunteering information afternoons for asylum seekers and refugees. The helping hand of Volunteer Glasgow is invaluable there – they have been coming to these sessions every month for two years now, to ensure our service users can engage with volunteering opportunities in the city of Glasgow. If you are an asylum seeker or a refugee interested in coming along to one of these sessions, or you want to come along to represent your organisation, do email us and let us know.
Tempted to join us?
We advertise all new volunteering opportunities on our website, and publicise via Facebook and twitter, and the Volunteer Glasgow website. Or you can email us to express interest.
We are not recruiting at the moment, but we will be early in the New Year.
So watch this space.
And while you are watching (and waiting impatiently for the New Year and its challenges), have a happy International Volunteer Day today, 5 December 2013.
And once again, thank you. We couldn’t do it without you.
