All of us at the Students Association are very pleased and grateful you have offered your time to support your fellow students here at the OU. Volunteering is a rewarding experience for the person giving their time too, and can also be a mechanism for positive change. The World Happiness Report 2024 describes a rise post-pandemic in benevolence in general, and this includes a rise in volunteering across generations.
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) of which the Association is a member, looked at the evidence for volunteering causing improved mental health and found that being a volunteer ‘…had favourable effects on depression, life satisfaction and wellbeing’.
We agree, and we go the extra mile to show how important our students volunteers are to the Association, and pledge to support you and your wellbeing throughout your volunteering journey.
You can find out more about the volunteering and health in this ResearchGate article, Volunteering and Health: What Impact Does It Really Have? and the benefits of volunteering for your community, your health and your development in the Forbes article Volunteering: A Formula for Help and Happiness.
We appreciate you may be available for a limited amount of time, as you have other responsibilities including your studies, or that you may be able to volunteer longer-term as one of our student voice reps.
However much time you may be able to give us, every role has a measurable impact and is crucial to the Association. After all, we are student led and couldn’t provide all the services we do and build student community without you!
You will find training to ensure you can carry out your role effectively and with confidence in the Volunteer Zone, and Association staff are on hand to support, with your dedicated Volunteering & Representation team often the first port of call.
Our volunteers
- We currently have around 193 volunteers carrying out nearly 270 volunteering roles, with 76 of our volunteers carrying more than one role.
Note: figures in bold are correct April 2024
Volunteer recognition
- We value all our volunteers and hold a recognition event either online or in person every two years. It is an opportunity to come together and celebrate our volunteers, our achievements and projects, and to discuss new ideas.
Transferable skills
- We recognise you bring experience and skills to your role, and we support you to develop further transferable skills whilst carrying out any of our volunteering roles. Our roles map to the OU’s employability skills and you can use your volunteering journey to build on your core skills and competencies, your personal attributes and also on your global and external awareness. You can find out more about the OU's Careers and Employability Service. You will also be able to audit your skills in the activities in their Career Planning Guide, a useful tool for mapping your volunteering journey as a learning experience.
Next section: Training and Support