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Volunteers make all the difference!
Kia Ora,
2015 is here and is already shaping up to be a great year for volunteering. This year I have been privileged to experience the positive effects of volunteering, both as a volunteer and a recipient of others’ volunteering.
In January, My husband and I volunteered on our girls’ school sailing trip to Quarantine Island. This was great – in return for helping organise food and students, and we had a mini-holiday. We spend two nights on amazing Quarantine Island. In amongst our volunteer “duties” we enjoyed some fantastic sailing, and were able to meet and get to know some of the other parents and students going to school with our kids. We came back relaxed and energised – a nice start to the New Year.
Then over Waitangi Day weekend, my friend Kim and I completed the Humpridge Track’s annual fundraising event – Stump the Hump – where the crazy people who enter, walk the entire 62km of the Humpridge track in under 24 hours. This is not an easy feat – especially if you have been a bit slack on the training as we had!! The walk involves an uphill and downhill climb from sea level to almost 1000km in elevation. Ignorance is bliss (or blisters as I found out first hand) and I had definitely underestimated how tough walk this would be.
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Volunteering Central
We've had some stunning, clear blue sky days here in Central over the long Christmas holidays and as well as enjoying time with our families, Trudy and I have had some time to reflect on the past year and think forward to the next.
Still a relatively new division of Volunteering Otago our potential is huge, so we have so many ideas to grow Volunteering Central but have to rein ourselves in sometimes and Trudy, (who covers Cromwell and Alexandra, whilst I cover Wanaka and Queenstown) often reminds me that we only just work full time hours between us and cover a large and varied area! However, even without all the long term, grandiose plans, our work is so rewarding.
Just a month back after the holidays and we have had the pleasure of meeting people from such a range of backgrounds, a young European backpacker looking to volunteer when time permits, the leader of a recently formed Leos group considering roles for their members, a local restaurant keen to get more connected with their community and a young car crash survivor re-building his life and keen to volunteer. People make our jobs so enjoyable and it is people we are all about - whether is it the volunteers themselves, the beneficiaries of their volunteering or people in the wider community.
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Volunteering Central Senior Coordinator - Gillian White
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Welcome to 2015!
It is shaping up to be a busy year as new referrals have been steadily coming in – 11 already and I have been back at work for only 6 weeks! That should keep me on my toes. I look forward to many more over the next weeks and months.
Meanwhile, those who already part of the Supported Volunteering family are doing extremely well. 26 people have begun the enrolment process while 42 people are already happily volunteering. 26 others are busy looking at the many options available to them before deciding what they’d like to try and there are 9 clients currently having some time out from the programme and are on hold. Phew! All in all it’s a busy but rewarding time for Supported Volunteering. I can’t wait to see what’s around the next corner.
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Supported Volunteering - Claire Van Loon Sim
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Giving a Hand in the School Holidays
Dunedin young people joined the Volunteering Otago Break-Away Free School Holiday Programme in January to have fun while giving back to the community. The programme offers a variety of volunteer opportunities to suit young peoples’ diverse interests. Young people contributed their input by brainstorming and raising awareness for anti-bullying strategies, gave their energy and enthusiasm to planting a school garden, showcased their creativity on radio and by creating wall art for local community organisations, and explored volunteer roles with the Otago SPCA and the Red Cross. In the final two weeks of the January programme, Volunteering Otago and the Red Cross partnered to deliver activities that included; Youth Emergency Preparedness, People Savers, Neighbourhood Support, and Surf Life Saving from the Brighton Surf Life Saving Club.
A great many organisations and volunteers help to deliver all of our holiday programme activities.
Thank you so much to: Brighton Surf Life Saving Club, Dunedin Collaboration Against Family Violence, Dunedin Community Food Harvesting Group, Dunedin Curtain Bank, FoodShare, Heike Cebulla and the Queens High School Garden, Keep Dunedin Beautiful, Kim Romeril and Neighbourhood Support, Otago Access Radio, Otago SPCA, Tarn Felton and the Anti-bullying Project, The Big Green Challenge, The Red Cross. Thank you also to all of the youth volunteers for participating in the programme and making it a great summer!
If you would like to get involved in the April Free School Holiday Programme, please contact Heather Moore at dunedinyouthvolunteering@gmail.com
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Youth Volunteering - Heather Moore
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How Volunteers Can Change the World
“Never Doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead.
The IHC volunteer movement advocates for the rights, welfare and inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities. Its goal is to support these people to live satisfying lives within the community. IHC began in 1949 with just 22 members, but it soon became one of the largest voluntary organisations in the country.
When IHC was founded, the intellectually disabled of New Zealand were completely ostracised by society. They lived out their days in institutional care facilities. But a snow-balling number of committed volunteers worked hard over decades to bring positive change and end this segregation.
It was a huge challenge and a difficult journey—but they succeeded! In this article, JB Munro, a former chief executive for IHC and a volunteer-coordination guru, kindly shares with us a little of what he learned about making volunteer organisations world-changing effective along the way.
Five World-Changing Tips
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Volunteer Post - Hayden Williams
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Quote of the Month
I slept and dreamt
that life was joy.
I awoke and saw
that life was service.
I acted and behold,
service was joy.
Rabindranath Tagore
Winner of Nobel prize in literature
(Born India 1846- 1941)
Shared with you by
Wendy
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