Cheers! Contact shares year’s successes for brewery head
Richard Everard delivers a cheque for £2000 to Contact Student Volunteers.
Contact Student Volunteers and the Volunteering Team hosted a special guest on campus, Mr Richard Everard, to express their gratitude for his longstanding support for student volunteering.
For two decades, Mr Everard has paid an annual visit to Contact Student Volunteers to present a cheque from the Everard Foundation to enable new student projects to be established.
As well as presenting a cheque, during his visit Mr Everard makes time to share his invaluable wisdom and experiences with student volunteers both as an employer and also as a keen volunteer himself. On this occasion, University Registrar Dave Hall, Director of Student Welfare Clare Taylor and Director of the Careers Service Bob Athwal were also present to watch student volunteers give short presentations on their projects.
Here, they report on a very productive year for our busy student volunteers:
The money from the Everard Foundation goes to support student led projects in the local community and two projects in particular have successfully received such support this year, the International Women’s Day conference hosted by students and the Creative Writing In Primary Schools (CWIPS).
PhD student and Founder of the Eva Organization for Women (EoW), Sadiyo Siad illustrated her work for International Women’s Day where she and close to 80 students organised a conference with a variety of speakers including Wendi Momen, UN Women committee member. Sadiyo and the volunteers also organised a family festival that focused on wellbeing through sessions on Tai Chi, life coaching, Reiki and performances by Leicester Amika Choir and comedienne, Ishi Khan Jackson.
The CWIPS project doubled in size for its second year and a hundred and twenty year 5 children got the chance to work with teams of Leicester Volunteers. Not only does it inspire the children to be creative and imaginative writers but volunteers are given the opportunity to share their knowledge and gain first hand teaching experience, creating a mutual opportunity for learning. Laura Hollis and Layla Vania from the CWIPS project showed Mr Everard examples of creative writing children had done whilst explaining some of the workshops the volunteers designed over the 6 weeks the project lasted.
Daniel Tinkler, Ashni Haria, Alex Williams and Katherine Horrocks of the Contact Executive Committee showcased a range of different volunteering projects made possible through the support of the Everard Foundation, including SCAMP – a playgroup for children with disabilities, after-school clubs at Medway Primary School and a Christmas party for children at Menphys.
- International students helping to clean up Victoria Park.
Gareth Hughes, Volunteering Events Co-ordinator, provided highlights of the Volunteering Team’s Community Challenges, a programme of events that take place twice a month during term time. These included environmental projects with Riverside Rangers, Christmas present wrapping for Rainbows and Toys on the Table, park clearing projects and much more.
The support of the Everard Foundation also enables Contact to organise large events such as ‘Make a Difference Day’ (MADD), a national event that takes place every October. The annual ‘12 days of Christmas’ volunteering programme also benefits, enabling volunteers to engage in twelve different one-off volunteering activities during December. One of the more rewarding and most successful events hosted by Contact last Christmas was the Age UK Christmas Party, which was held in the student Union and was attended by over 100 Age UK day centre users from across Leicester.
Students interested should visit the Volunteering website for more information. There are a wide range of projects available all year, including the summer, so it’s not too late to volunteer this year! E-mail contact@le.ac.uk for any enquiries relating to CWIPS or other volunteering projects.
