October 16, 2014, by sustainablenottingham

Giving back to Nottingham

Lucy Dalgress, from the Student Volunteer Centre, reports on a wealth of volunteering opportunities.

The Student Volunteer Centre is part of your Students’ Union, and we offer lots of different ways to get involved in volunteering projects across Nottingham and throughout our external campuses Derby and Sutton Bonington.

Volunteering plays a huge part of sustainability at The University of Nottingham, it’s not just about the ‘green projects’ (don’t get me wrong they’re a big part of it!) but volunteering is about the breadth of sustainability, so whether that’s supporting local community groups, promoting healthy living, enabling vulnerable adults and children to get involved with their environment – the possibilities are endless!

Karnival volunteers

Volunteers during National Student Volunteer Week

One of the ways to get involved is to undertake an External Placement; we offer a brokerage service where we work with over 70 different charitable organisations, ranging from smaller community based groups such as Activ8 Uth, a youth club in Lenton to your better known national organisations such as the Alzheimer’s’ Society.

We also have Student Led Projects, groups that started out as an idea or an initiative from a student that have turned into small charity-like organisations. These help support people in need in and around the local community, so whether that’s the campus Community Garden who run a sustainable green space on campus and donate produce to local community groups, or Knit-a-Soc whose selfless knitting provides the local hospitals with hats and cardigan for premature babies, or Innocent smoothie Hats for Age UK!

Strapped for time? We offer lots of one of opportunities that you can get involved in on an ad hoc basis, these range from counting deer at Batman’s House (Wollaton Hall) to cheering on runners for the Half Marathon.

Whatever your interests there’s always some way you can give back to our wonderful environment here at Nottingham.

For all of the ways to get involved check out our website and find us on facebook and twitter.

Posted in Students' Union