Community Participation Experience
14 - 19 Community Participation Experience
This is a completely new project which has been run as a pilot scheme in Fairwater High School since November 2004. The pilot scheme has involved a large number of sixteen plus students becoming involved in volunteering activities within Torfaen. The volunteering activities have varied from assisting on an environmental project, helping out at a local Age Concern Centre, buddy reading in local schools, painting murals, football coaching etc. These students have volunteered in their own time and have been gaining recognition for their volunteering.
Volunteers are able to gain experience of the various needs of the communities around them and also see how important they are to those people they volunteer with. Whilst they have been volunteering on this pilot scheme the young people have signed up to Millennium Volunteers where their volunteering hours are counted up towards them achieving their 100 and 200 hours Award of Excellence, this is the highest volunteering award any young person can achieve in the U.K.
This scheme has now been extended to a further four schools and one college, so look out to see if it is running in a school near you.