Student volunteers brush up painting skills at centre for young disabled people

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Students from Discovery Student Volunteering Swansea have brushed up on their painting, decorating and gardening skills as the helped to brighten up an activity centre for young disabled people in Swansea as part of their Week of Work (WoW) project.

Discovery student vounteers

Eight students from Discovery, the Swansea University student volunteering charity, spent the day at Friends of the Young Disabled Activity centre (FOYD]) in Swansea painting a mural and also spent the following day doing gardening and outdoor work there. The volunteer work was carried out as part of Discovery’s Big Paint and Big Community Garden projects, and are just some of the activities in a packed programme of student volunteering this term. 

Liam Kelleher, a Physics PhD student who co-ordinated the Big Paint said: “As well as working at the centre, we also had some social time to talk to some of the youngsters who use the centre and centre staff – they are all great company and have wonderful stories.”

In the autumn term alone Discovery recorded 160 active volunteers and recruited a further 140 new volunteers who worked with our 29 student project co-ordinators and recorded more than 2,460 hours of volunteering.

All Discovery volunteers attend mandatory training and complete an enhanced DBS check before volunteering and some volunteers can also attend additional training where appropriate. They can volunteer in any of four main volunteering areas:

Discovery infographic

  • Involve which supports vulnerable adults, including supporting people with additional needs to get involved with activities or to volunteer themselves.  It also includes supporting older members of the community, particularly those who may be isolated.
  • Inspire which supports children and young people and volunteers can support a buddy reading scheme or young people affected by autism.  The can also work at Sketty Park Youth Group, or with child refugees and asylum seekers.
  • Interact which focuses on improving the environment and activities include litter picks, serving surplus food meals to vulnerable community members and working on gardening and decorating projects
  • International which centres on the Swansea Siavonga Partnership, a community work project based in Siavonga in Zambia.

 

Volunteers can also choose to work directly with a range of Swansea based projects run by other organisations which also help support children and young people, adults with additional needs or focuses on the environment.

More information about volunteering can be found here