By Rachel Measures, BA (Hons) Media, 3rd Year.
Being a student means that you don’t always have that much spare time, but there are so many opportunities awaiting avid volunteers, here are five ways you can start volunteering…
1 – Volunteer as course rep
This role, while important to the wellbeing and improvement of your course and its students, is perhaps one of the easiest types of volunteering to get involved with at Sheffield Hallam’s Students Union. It usually takes up 90 minutes of your time per semester for physical meetings, and the rest of the role is about talking to your peers, reciting theirs and your own feelings back to your course and module leaders. An easier role that makes a massive impact!
2 – Volunteer during Student Volunteering Week
There are a range of activities that the Student’s Union are running for you to get involved in such as: a launch breakfast on the 19th February, one-off volunteering sessions, workshops for the Hallam Award and Bright Ideas, getting societies involved in further volunteering, and getting current team projects within the Student’s Union to volunteer in different places, as well as a digital campaign… and it’s all happening as part of Student Volunteering Week!
Sometimes it is hard to find time get involved in volunteering, and sometimes finding out volunteering information can be difficult, so make sure to look out for campaigns run by the Student’s Union volunteering team: Hallam Holidays happens each December, and Student Volunteering Week is every February, to see what micro-volunteering and one-off projects you can help with!
3 – Volunteer as part of a society committee
Being a committee member is a lot of work, and the most unrecognised volunteering we have at Hallam! If you can’t dedicate too much time outside of your other commitments but you are already a part of society, why not think about getting involved in their committee? Committee elections are coming up soon and giving up your time to run a society is a great way to get involved with volunteering.
4 – Take part in ‘One offs’
Sheffield Hallam’s Student’s Union provide a good amount of ‘One-off’ volunteering opportunities, such as: dog-walking, helping at a local farm, renovating a local picture house, being an event volunteer, which you can sign up to on their website. These opportunities have no regular commitment so students, myself included, often find these easier to fit into their busy lives!
5 – Become a project leader
If you have a little bit more time on your hands, why not become a Project Leader and design your own volunteering project? I have done this myself for two projects, and I literally just went to the Student’s Union volunteering team with my ideas and we managed to set up an entire project around it. My current project is Make-A-Mag which I run at a local school to teach children about journalism and magazine production, and I honestly cannot believe the joy I found at seeing the children be proud of their work
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