Volunteering
Amdani Conwy! – Volunteering Cities
Conwy Wales
Volunteering Cities
Medway Change Makers
A two-and-a-half-year project to build an inclusive volunteer programme for Chatham, Rochester, Gillingham, Rainham and Strood.
Project information
Medway Change Makers is a two-and-a-half-year project which aims to harness the momentum generated through the City of Culture bid to build on the volunteer offer across the region. 36 volunteer ‘ambassadors’ will be recruited from Medway’s areas of greatest deprivation and least cultural engagement, and from communities with barriers to volunteering.
The ambassadors will in turn recruit 540 ‘Change Makers’ from their local area to participate in micro or one-off volunteering offers connected to local cultural and community events, including Medway Light Nights, Electric Medway and Chatham Carnival.
The project will be delivered in partnership between Ideas Test, Medway Voluntary Action, Medway Place Board, Creative Medway & Medway Council.
Medway is one of four locations which have been awarded a grant from the Volunteering Cities fund.
Project aims
- People’s wellbeing and life satisfaction increases through volunteering as part of community cultural events.
- Civic and community pride increases through volunteering and encountering volunteers as part of community cultural events.
- Transactional ‘micro’ volunteering at cultural events enables a greater diversity of one-off and repeat volunteers who would otherwise face barriers to participating as equals.
- Volunteering at community cultural events leads to increased arts and cultural engagement.
- The learning outcomes foster a more nuanced understanding of events as a means to achieve the above understanding, leading to events producers/managers placing increased value on volunteers at cultural events.