Lend a hand. Make a change.
You may have seen on the news that the Big Help Out, the UK’s largest volunteering campaign is back. Last year, The Big Help Out was launched in May to raise awareness of volunteering throughout the UK and provide opportunities for people to experience volunteering and make a difference in their communities. It was launched to coincide with the Coronation, but this year they are transforming the campaign from a one-off day of mass action into a key part of every voluntary organisation’s annual calendar.
This year they will be doing more work to engage with schools and the education sector as a whole. We were recently invited to an online meeting with the Together coalition who coordinate the campaign due to the alignment of their aims with our work at First Give. We are delighted to be partnering with The Big Help Out to encourage and inspire young people and schools to take part.
In 2024, The Big Help Out will return and align with Volunteers’ Week from Friday 7th to Sunday 9th June, and they are ambitious to see millions of people volunteering over the weekend.
They have worked with various organisations to develop an education pack, designed to support schools to get involved on Friday 7th June. The pack includes an assembly which you can deliver to students and some other resources you might want to use. Of course, as a First Give partner school, we know how much you already do to support your students to contribute to their community in a meaningful way.
In a report from the Chartered College, our Director Louisa Searle commented that –
“It is more important than ever that we provide opportunities for young people to make a difference to the causes they care about. When young people have the opportunity to make a real, tangible difference to their communities through social action, they also gain all of the benefits that such work may bring (Kirkman et al., 2016): for example, a feeling of agency and usefulness, teamwork and collaborative skills, public speaking, project planning, leadership, empathy, and improved self-esteem and self-efficacy as a result.”
- Educate with FREE VotesforSchools assembly resources: March 11th – 22nd
- Plan for the day using our suggested Big Help Out activities with your students: April – May
- Get involved with your students on the Day: June 7th
Their pack is available to access at: www.thebighelpout.org.uk/schools
If your First Give programme and your students’ social action activities coincide with the 7th June OR if you want to inspire your students to take part in the campaign, please download the pack on the Big Help Out website and see what you can do.
If you do get involved, we’d love to hear about it. Make sure you tag us in any social media content you put out and let us know if your students get passionate about a particular issue or cause!