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Volunteer Opportunities
Community Links runs community-based projects in 60 centres and invites employees to volunteer their time to make a difference to the lives of children and adults across east London! The volunteering opportunties listed below are open to employees of companies that support our work through corporate donations. As we celebrate our 30th anniversary we’d like to focus our volunteer projects on empowering children and young people, families and older people and communities to maximise their own potential to achieve.
Check out some recent projects that corporate volunteers have been involved with! For more information about a specific opportunity, please email Seema Modhvadia
Empowering Children and Young People
Create and Run a Skills Workshop
During term-time or holidays, create and run your own workshop at an after school club, youth centre, or in the daytime for an education centre for kids who are excluded from school or young people who are looking for work. Topics can include: CV building, interview skills, photography, budget management, music, drama, arts, sports, etc depending on the age range at that centre. Share your knowledge, experience and enthusiasm to make a difference to young peoples lives. Can be a one-off individual or team volunteer opportunity.
Inspire Young People to Learn a Sport
Any time of the year when the weather permits, you can volunteer alongside the sports development team (S-Team), who sets up sports leagues in estates throughout east London to improve the well-being of kids and to keep them out of trouble. The S-Team sets up projects in parks and works closely with the children to generate interest and develop skills in various sports. Through regular visits, typically over a 6 month period, the group grows and becomes more established, until eventually when the kids take complete ownership of their new sports league. At this point the S-Team moves onto the next neighbourhood and starts all over again. Can be an ongoing or one-off individual or team volunteer opportunity.
Engage with children in After-School Clubs
During term-time, spend a weekday afternoon helping kids with their homework and/or running an activity outside of the centre’s daily programs involving arts and crafts, music, drama, or anything else of interest to kids. Can be an ongoing or one-off individual or team volunteer opportunity.
Design an Alternative Education Project
During term-time, volunteer with one of our educational projects to provide alternative ways of learning, which are often more effective for these children who do not thrive in regular school environments. Collaborate with teachers in advance to bring in aspects of curriculum into the unique activities, which can include: doing a series of workshops that enable the children to produce a youth newsletter; assist with creative writing projects; teach kids to develop music and/or films; take kids on a half-day rock climbing or museum trip. Can be a one-off individual or team volunteer opportunity.
Plan a Fun Day or an Educational Trip
Between Easter and October, Links Event Solutions can organise an event to involve as many or as few kids as we choose, accommodating as many as 200 children. We can suggest the venue, provide services that fit within your available budget, and if necessary bring in our own staff to assist on the day. Can be branded as a sponsored event by our company. Take children from a community centre ranging from 6-13 years on an educational day trip to visit a zoo, museum, theme park, or other general places of interest. Trips can include or be focused around children with
special needs and/or disabilities if the volunteers are keen to involve them. Great one-off opportunity for a large group of volunteers!
Offer a Work Experience Placement at Your Company
Inspire a young person by providing them with a one week placement at your work place. Many of the young people we work with have not been outside Newham. A work experience placement would broaden their horizons and introduce them to the work environment and the many career choices out there.
Empowering Families and Older People
Host a party or outing for elderly
Community Links holds a senior's bingo club every Wednesday and provides elderly outreach services to offer advice to those who are unable to leave their homes. Help us to unlock the potential in Newham’s elderly people, by hosting a summer or Christmas party, or a fun outing for member of our pensioners club.
Christmas Season Volunteering
There are lots of fun and festive volunteering opportunities for individual or teams to get involved with leading up to the holiday season. For more information about Christmas volunteering activities, contact Thomas Crews in the autumn!
Empowering Communities
Extreme Makeover Team Challenges
Paint a room or a mural, plant a garden, or spruce up one of our many centres to make the buildings more inviting for the thousands of young people who utilise them all year round. Because centres’ needs are always changing, please check with Thomas Crews to learn about the current projects that are available at the time that your team is interested in volunteering.
Innovate to Impact Communities
Depending on the studies that Links UK, Community Links national arm, is undertaking at a given point in time, you can volunteer to support their work by undertaking policy-based research, conducting interviews or large-scale surveys, or providing editorial expertise to their publications group. Because these needs are always changing, please contact Thomas Crews for available opportunities at the time when you or your team is interested in volunteering.
For more information about a specific opportunity or to get involved please complete this form and email it to Seema Modhvadia