Find out more about what we've been working on and our next steps to bring more exciting opportunities to students at Queen Mary.
On the 8th September, we launched the Centre for Volunteering and Outreach at an event which brought together our community volunteering partners, student volunteers and members of the Queen Mary community. This was a celebratory occasion to highlight the dedication of Queen Mary volunteers, and to outline QMSU's next steps to offer even more opportunities for our students to get involved with!
We presented our steps so far to improve our volunteering opportunities and partner relationships, and our future priorities to build upon this.
Improving the volunteering service
During the presentation, we covered how we have built stronger relationships with our community partners over the last year.
We then highlighted the key findings from our student feedback report, which included that:
- Most students are interested in volunteering while at university and are aware that the SU offers volunteering opportunities, but most have not participated in these
- Students are interested in opportunities which are convenient and flexible
- Experiences of volunteering through QMSU are mainly highly positive!
Our next steps based on the feedback are to increase promotion of volunteering opportunities to get more students involved, offer more opportunities students want, and focus on enhancing student skills and employability through volunteering and outreach.
Next, we heard from two of our brilliant student volunteers, Alex and Amelia, about their experiences as the Presidents of one of our student-led volunteering groups, Teddy Bear Hospital. Alex and Amelia highlighted how rewarding this experience had been, as well as the skills they developed leading and managing a team of over 200 volunteers!
Introducing outreach opportunities
Lastly, we had a Q&A session with the Imperial War Museum about working with us on our pilot outreach project, engaging students as co-creators in their upcoming exhibition about South Asian experiences during the Second World War. Their conversation emphasised the meaningful contribution and unique perspective the students provided, as well as how they developed insight into the heritage sector while developing confidence and employability skills.
Building upon the improvements we have made to our volunteering offer, we are excited to introduce outreach opportunities which enhance and enrich students' skills, while involving them in social impact projects which benefit the community.
Visit the Volunteering and Outreach pages. If you have any questions, please email su-volunteering@qmul.ac.uk.