UEL celebrates its community volunteers - University of East London (UEL)

13 March 2018

UEL students contributed 10,000 hours of volunteering in 2017

By Lee Pinkerton

Staff, students and representatives from community organisations attended the recent University of East London (UEL) Volunteering Awards.

UEL hosts the awards to recognise the hard work and dedication of students who give up their time to support local charities.

Over 800 students are currently registered with UEL’s volunteering hub, which logged over 10,000 volunteering hours last year.

Organisations that have benefited from student volunteers this year include the Barking and Dagenham Youth Offending Service, Islamic Circles Supplementary School, the Mildmay Hospital, Jewish Care, Future Frontiers and the Hackney Pirates.

Some students took part in academic programme-based civic engagement projects, doing jobs such as translating for refugees and raising awareness of diabetes in BAME communities.

At the awards ceremony on UEL’s Docklands Campus, students who had logged over 200 volunteering hours received a platinum award, while those with 100 hours got a gold recognition.

Joseph Crook, UEL’s Volunteering Manager, said, “Today’s jobs market is very tough, and increasingly it is not enough just to have a degree. Approximately 73 per cent of employers will hire someone with volunteering experience over someone without it.

He told students, “You should be using volunteering to boost your CV. That may not be why you do it, but make sure you use it to boost your employability.

“But it’s is not just about employability. It’s also about making the society that we live in fairer and more accessible for people. And you learn so much about other people and yourself when you volunteer.

Students who wish to register as volunteers can do so by registering on the UEL volunteering website