Toc H charity launches volunteer project

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A project which aims to encourage hard to reach young people into volunteering has been launched by national charity Toc H, thanks to £250,000 given by the new youth volunteering charity v and match funded by UK Educational Fellowship (UKEF) Ltd. This Toc H initiative provides short term and part-time volunteering opportunities for 1,000 young people aged 16-25 across the UK over a two-year period.

This Toc H initiative will provide a direct service specifically aimed at hard to engage groups of young people, providing a framework for volunteering in a non-threatening environment. It provides them with the required pre-volunteering skill set that will enable them to make a positive contribution and achieve as active citizens.

Volunteering opportunities will be varied and diverse including placements in the public and private sector relating to career aspirations, supporting local groups, co-ordinating and supporting leisure activity groups such as music and sport and organising and running local events.

Importantly, the programme has been designed and implemented in collaboration with young people who have experienced social exclusion and are now working as volunteers for Toc H. These young volunteers are the basis of a national youth forum which will deliver 10 regional seminars over a two year period. They will be tasked to identify a suitable name for the programme that will be used to headline its official launch in September.

Jenny Banks, Toc H Business Development Manager, said: “Our youth volunteers have personal experience of social exclusion and the barriers identified. One of the young men leading our youth forum says that he sees this as a circle of life which needs to be broken and has a passion to recycle the help he has received from Toc H.

“He has been given the skills and resources that led to his personal development and now sees that, as part of the rolling programme, he should now offer the same opportunity to other young people”