February has been a busy month at Student Hubs. Nationally, we have celebrated Student Volunteering Week and the launch of our webinar series. Locally, our Hubs have been providing support to their communities in fresh and exciting ways.
Winchester Hub in the Community
Winchester Hub have been spreading the love in their local community through two of their projects; Youth Theatre and Woolly Matters.
Youth Theatre usually facilitates weekly drama workshops to provide equal access to creative arts for young people, however over the past year opportunities for face to face activities have been limited. Not letting this slow them down, the students that support Youth Theatre made at home packs for 30 local families which were distributed by The Carroll Centre over February half term.
Woolly Matters are knitters and crocheters who come together to create for the local community. This month they spread the joy with 10 octopi delivered to County Hospital in Winchester which will be gifted to patients on the dementia ward and babies. There are also 10 ‘bobby buddies’ lined up, ready to be sent to Hampshire Police in Southampton, Portsmouth, Basingstoke and Fareham. These will be used by nervous and upset children.
A New Partnership with Kingston Library
The team at Kingston Hub have been working hard behind the scenes with Kingston Library to collaborate on some new opportunities for university students. The projects aim to tackle isolation and support digital literacy through social learning.
Student volunteers can now sign up to become a “Digital Champion”. Their role will be to assist local residents with their digital needs, from online shopping to setting up video calls. This not only offers digital support, but also promotes the physical and mental wellbeing of the participants by getting them online. Later on this term two more roles will open up: “Code Club Volunteer” and “Minecraft Moderator”. We can’t wait to hear more.
The Launch of Student Hubs’ Webinars
This month we launched our student and staff webinar series with two events.
On Tuesday 9 February, Laura and Natalie, two of our Programme Managers, kickstarted the student series with a session on “How to Find Volunteering Opportunities and Generating your Own Ideas“. This was followed by the launch of our staff webinar series on Wednesday 10 February. Fiona Walsh, our Sales Director, brought together individuals from five universities across the country in a session on “Bringing Student Leaders Together“, highlighting Student Hubs’ top tips.
A huge congratulations to Laura, Natalie and Fiona for facilitating such engaging events.
The series will continue in March with a free session for students on 2 March focused on “Employability and Third Sector Jobs” (with an additional employability Q&A with our Alumni Ambassadors on 9 March!) and a session for staff on 18 March focused on “Embedding Student Leadership into Programme Design“. Tickets are still available and we are looking forward to seeing you there.
In the Spotlight
This month we want to put Engage for Change in the spotlight. Engage for Change is a twelve-week programme for students at the University of Cambridge who want to learn to make change happen. Students are supported to design, implement and evaluate their own environmental sustainability-related intervention, aligned with the University’s Environmental Sustainability Vision, Policy and Strategy.
This month, the first cohort of students finished the programme whilst a new group were inducted. In addition, Laura Barr, who supports the Engage for Change programme in Cambridge, presented at the UUK Climate Conference, inspiring others by sharing reflections on the programme. Read more about Engage for Change on the Student Hubs blog.
What to Look Out For
- Another year, another inspiring Student Volunteering Week. Find out what we got up to on the blog and across our local Hub social media channels
- In case you missed it, Student Hubs made it onto The Escape 100, an annual campaign that recognises organisations that care about their employees and the planet. Read the reflections of our CEO, Sim Dhanjal
- And finally, a reminder to read our 2019-20 impact report (and our reflections on the report) if you haven’t already