SVW 2015 will take place from 23 Feb to 1 March 2015 and will include events on campuses and in communities across the UK. We’re also building our media profile and planning high-level events to share the impact of student volunteering with the nation.
Our mission:
We aim to bring together individuals and organisations across the UK to celebrate the achievements and impact of student volunteers in their local communities; encouraging and inspiring more students to volunteer.
Credit: Imperial Hub
2015 will be the 14th year of Student Volunteering Week in the UK. But student volunteering and social action in the UK has a long history, from university settlements and missions in the nineteenth century to workcamps for the unemployed in the interwar period to CND protesting and Student Community Action after the Second World War and throughout the later part of the 20th Century.
More recently, students are at the forefront of promoting the sustainability agenda and are taking an increasing interest in social entrepreneurship. If you’re curious about the journey we’ve been on, you can watch a video on the history of student volunteering, find out about the first ten years of SVW, and read the 2010 article by Georgina Brewis: Students, Volunteering and Social Action: How did we get where we are today?
SVW 2015 is delivered through a partnership between NUS and Student Hubs with the support of Barclays.
Student Hubs believes that students have the power and potential to shape a better world. We inspire, connect and support students to get involved and make a difference while they’re at university. By promoting social action, social entrepreneurship and citizenship, we want to empower more students to become social leaders for the causes they’re passionate about.
NUS (National Union of Students) is a voluntary membership organisation that makes a real difference to the lives of students and its member students’ unions. Our mission is to promote, defend and extend the rights of students and to develop and champion strong students’ unions. Our vision is of NUS as a pioneering, innovative and powerful campaigning organisation: the national voice of students. We will fight barriers to education, empower students to shape both a quality learning experience and the world around them, supporting influential, democratic and well-resourced students’ unions.
Student Hubs and NUS would like to thank Barclays for their generous support of Student Volunteering Week 2015.
We’ve pledged to support Step Up to Serve’s #iwill campaign. Throughout the year, we will highlight examples of youth social action and the principles underpinning youth social action to student volunteering centres across the UK. During the week, we will reach over 15,000 students at over 100 colleges and universities, and have a social media reach of over 4 million.
