In our January email update, City Action sent all our clients a selection of volunteering options within schools. The sessions are aimed at helping the students discover the ‘world of work’, ranging from interview/CV workshops to developing their own product/business concepts. The support of employee volunteers is vital to these sessions as they bring with them real life knowledge and are positive role models for the young people to spend time with. City Action has had an excellent response to these sessions and many are now booked-up with willing volunteers.
City Action also supports businesses that are looking to develop a longer-term relationship with a school, via a reading or mentoring scheme for example. I have recently co-ordinated review meetings with several businesses and their school partners. The feedback that is given by the schools is always positive as they recognise the value that 1:1 volunteer support provides each child – conversations are littered with phrases such as ‘improved social confidence’, ‘raised self-esteem’ and ‘increased literacy levels’.
The value of business and education support was re-iterated at a celebration event I attended earlier this week hosted by the Southwark Education Business Alliance. Many businesses ranging from global fuel suppliers to SME law firms were in attendance and all had developed a valuable partnership with a school. Southwark is a borough that has unique challenges – as 4 in 10 children are given free school meals (the national average is 1 in 10). However, Southwark’s standards of education are continuing to rise and throughout the event it was stressed how important employee volunteer support is to the schools, particularly to help foster the ‘mindset’ in young people that they would like to achieve in school and in their future careers.
The Government recognises the need for the education and business sectors to work in partnership with one another as their recent publication ‘Building Stronger Partnerships’ illustrates. I hope that despite the downturn, businesses and their employees continue to consider volunteering as a great opportunity for staff to get out of the office (and their comfort zone!) and as a way of each individual developing personal/professional skills whilst supporting young people at a vital time in their lives -perhaps even more so than ever before.
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I think there are also many lessons that the private sector can learn from the voluntary sector in these challenging economic times – and vice versa. As well as developing skills, I would like the private sector to see employee volunteering as an opportunity to open up conversations between the sectors – it’s a great way to learn from each other!