Volunteers’ Week 2022 Launch!

‘A Time to Say Thanks’ to local community heroes this Volunteers’ Week

Volunteers’ Week, which runs from 1-7 June, will honour local volunteers with a week-long programme of events as part of wider UK celebrations.

With the countdown now on to Volunteers’ Week 2022, which runs from 1-7 June, Volunteer Now is calling on communities and businesses across Northern Ireland to get ready to honour local heroes by taking ‘Time to Say Thanks’ as part of a week-long programme of activity celebrating volunteering across the UK.

Now in its 38^th year, Volunteers’ Week sees charities, voluntary groups, social organisations, and volunteers themselves come together to recognise the incredible impact that volunteering has in communities, both locally and regionally.

This year’s theme – ‘A time to say thanks’ – encourages everyone to recognise the huge impact that people from all walks of life make on the lives of people and their communities when they volunteer.

The week-long celebration, coinciding with the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, will include designated themed days showcasing the breadth and impact that different types of volunteering has played in local communities over the last 12 months. Each day is a chance to take the time to say thank you to volunteers across Northern Ireland – and Volunteer Now is calling for all charities and volunteers to get involved.

With around 282,000 formal volunteers carrying out work with designated organisations and 470,000 informal volunteers, volunteering plays a significant role across the region.

Each year, volunteers across Northern Ireland carry out work worth more than half a billion pounds and contribute £504 million to the local economy. Voluntary organisations in Northern Ireland do work worth more than half a billion pounds a year.

As the lead organisation for volunteering in Northern Ireland, Volunteer Now is leading the charge to put Volunteers’ Week firmly on the community agenda, encouraging everyone to engage with the week-long programme of activity to say a collective ‘thank you’ to volunteers right across the region.

Denise Hayward, chief executive at Volunteer Now, which coordinates Volunteers’ Week in Northern Ireland, commented:

“Volunteers have continued to give so much time, energy, commitment and skills to the communities and organisations that they have supported through another difficult year. It is fitting that Volunteers Week 2022 will give everyone the opportunity to say ‘Thank You’ to everyone who has made a difference through their voluntary efforts.”

Volunteer Now is also calling for more people to participate in volunteering activity by registering with its online portal.

Launched in 2020, Volunteer Now’s revolutionary volunteering platform, in partnership with Be Collective, is celebrating its second anniversary, having registered and connected almost 7,000 volunteers with more than 1,800 organisations across a wide range of opportunities.

The Be Collective platform is the first of its kind to be implemented within the charity sector in Northern Ireland and aims to revolutionise volunteering and its impacts for businesses, community groups and individuals across the region.

The platform cohesively connects volunteering, organisations, outcomes and social value through innovative social infrastructure and for the first time quantifies volunteering contribution by giving individuals and businesses a social “record”.

“I’m delighted to celebrate the second anniversary of our Be Collective online volunteering platform has really revolutionised how we connect volunteers with real time opportunities, providing support for communities across Northern Ireland and, importantly, delivering quantifiable and demonstrable impact for organisations investing in their people.

We’re delighted to see so many of our partners embrace this new platform and we would encourage any organisation considering volunteering to get in touch with us and register with the platform. With a wide variety of live volunteering opportunities, there has never been a better time for volunteers, or those considering getting into volunteering, to find their perfect match”, added Denise Hayward.

For more information on events planned for Volunteers’ Week in Northern Ireland, which runs from 1-7 June 2022, please click here or follow @VolunteerNow on Facebook or Instagram.

For resources and more information on Volunteers’ Week UK, please visit www.volunteersweek.org