The Big Help Out aims to get more people involved in volunteering by encouraging people to take part in introductory volunteering opportunities on the 8 May bank holiday.
The Big Help Out is a national opportunity to get more people involved in volunteering by encouraging people to take part in introductory volunteering activities on the 8 May bank holiday. The campaign is being led by a number of UK charities including NSPCC, British Red Cross, Scouts, St John’s ambulance and many more.
The day is about encouraging more people to try volunteering by helping out in their local area and aims to inspire them to get into volunteering in the long-term.
SHARING OPPORTUNITIES
The Big Help Out website will be advertising volunteering opportunities across the UK on their website from the 20 March and people looking for activities to get involved within Wales will be signposted to the Volunteering Wales platform. This increased traffic will help generate interest in existing volunteer opportunities in Wales as well as those specifically for the Big Help Out.
Big Help Out opportunities should be tasks that people can complete in a few hours just to give them a flavour of what they can do to help out in their local communities on a regular basis. This could be litter picking, collecting and delivering food parcels, restoring items/ equipment, creating community artwork, planting trees- and so much more.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
If your organisation or community group is able to list new taster volunteer sessions over the bank holiday weekend (6-8 May), please upload the opportunities to Volunteering Wales where you can add a tag for ‘Big Help Out’ opportunities. If you need any assistance with uploading opportunities to Volunteering Wales, please get in touch.
SHINING A LIGHT ON VOLUNTEERING
With National Volunteers’ Week around the corner (1-7 June 2023), the theme of which for 2023 is ‘celebrate and inspire’, the Big Help Out day will also be an opportunity to highlight the diversity of volunteering in Wales and share the personal and community benefits of volunteering.
We would therefore encourage you to also think about the individuals, projects and beneficiaries you would like to spotlight as part of those that ‘help out’ in Wales. You could tell a story or encourage the volunteers or beneficiaries to share their own story – collectively, we could really bang the drum of how ‘helping out’ in Wales changes lives.
ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO PARTICIPATE
If you wish to get involved by sharing information and resources on volunteering in Wales, you will find lots of useful information and resources on volunteering on the Third Sector Support (TSSW) Knowledge Hub. We would also encourage you to promote the national Volunteering Wales website, the home of hundreds of volunteering opportunities across Wales.