What is the student offer?
Many staff including Academic Advisers and PSS staff in student facing roles are able to promote volunteering to students.
Volunteer Hub
This online portal gives students the opportunity to search through and apply to hundreds of volunteering roles based with community organisations. The organisations and opportunities listed have passed a number of checks by volunteering staff. Students have their own account on Volunteer Hub and as they complete volunteering, organisations are encouraged to post students’ hours onto their account so that there is a record of each student's activity. Students are also able to log volunteering hours they have completed in roles they have found independent of Volunteer Hub.
The records on Volunteer Hub provide the evidence of a student's completion of the ‘Making a Difference’ section of the Stellify Award.
Volunteer Days
The volunteering staff work in partnership with community organisations to provide one-off volunteering opportunities to students. These include activities such as tree planting and other environmental tasks, supporting fundraising events and supporting activities for specific client groups.
Volunteer Projects
Mentoring support is available to students volunteering on a number of university-led projects delivered in partnership with community groups.
Many volunteering opportunities, including volunteer days and projects support students to engage with the Manchester Wards which make up the University’s immediate neighbours and the areas that many students make their home. These include areas such as Ardwick, Hulme, Fallowfield and Withington.
International Volunteering
The University has a flagship international project, developed in partnership with SALVE International. Through this fifteen students every year spend one month in Uganda supporting the organisation, which works with children who live in the street. The project is supported by funding from the Division of Development and Alumni Relations and targets Widening Participation students who would not normally be able to afford to volunteer overseas.
In addition the University has developed a relationship with a number of ‘Trusted Partners’ who have gone through rigorous checks. These checks provide assurance that the opportunities are ethical, developed in partnership with the host communities, do not support a culture of dependency and are safe, properly supported and meaningful experiences for students.
Advice and guidance on what to look for in a good overseas volunteering experience is available to students.
