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International Volunteer Day

3 December 2021

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The United Nations Volunteers Programme (UNV) coordinates International Volunteer Day on 5th December every year to recognise and promote the tireless work of volunteers across the globe.

Young people, Gabriel, Kate, Calvin and Lasbrey at Coca-Cola Reach Up programme, London, 28th October 2021

At UK Youth, we encourage all our staff to volunteer in their local community and we provide each staff member with one paid Volunteering day. This week, our Design Project Manager Kate took advantage of this to volunteer with the Wilderness Foundation.

“I’ve been volunteering with Wilderness Foundation every week since June 2021.  I meet my mentee each week for about one hour and on Saturday the programme I mentor on was having its final celebration – it was time for the young people to graduate.  I spent my volunteer day in the beautiful setting of rural Essex and while the young people went on their final trail together, the other volunteer mentors and I set up the venue to host the celebrations – there would be speeches, awards, food and drinks, families and friends.  It was such a beautiful and fitting day, the young people and their achievements over the last 6 months were the focus and fully celebrated by everyone there. We heard about mentor/mentee challenges, emotions, achievements, and dreams in the joint speeches.  It was great to be part of the bigger group celebration, as well as support my mentee achieve personal milestones too.”


Calvin at Coca-Cola Reach Up programme, London, 28th October 2021

The youth of today are tomorrows leaders, so helping them and providing them with opportunities post Covid-19 is so important.”

Calvin – Sales Rep CCEP

Calvin, a sales rep at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), volunteered with UK Youth to give young people an insight into what his role involves.

“When I was that age, there were no programmes available for me to learn what employment actually involved. To see Coca-Cola Europacific Partners and UK Youth come together to provide this was great!”.

“The young people took away a lot of knowledge about Coca-Cola as a brand but also seeing a shop from a business perspective. It gave them the opportunity to know that working for a big brand isn’t as hard as they thought it was. It was also good for them to know that they are able to develop skillsets within a role, and see that promotion is possible!”

“You can see in my community it’s such a fine line between doing the right thing or the wrong thing. So, I’ve always wanted to volunteer in my community but the opportunities are tough to find. I really did enjoy it, and found it a great experience”.

“If you’ve got a passion to help young people, then definitely get involved with UK Youth. The youth of today are tomorrows leaders, so helping them and providing them with opportunities post Covid-19 is so important”.

Thank you to Kate and Calvin for sharing their stories and all their hard work volunteering.

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