The sun shines on Volunteers’ Week

From the 1st to the 7th of June the whole UK celebrates the unique and invaluable input of volunteers all around the country. In Scotland, every year thousands of volunteers giving a positive contribution to our society through many various and different ways.

So this week is a great opportunity for us focus on our wonderful volunteers, and genuinely say “Thank You”. Here at Fast Forward we want to say a massive THANK YOU to our volunteers, both our peer educators and our board members, without whom Fast Forward wouldn’t be Fast Forward.

It is impressive to think that only in these 6 past months our peer educators have volunteered a total of about 280 hours!

Currently, we have 20 volunteers part of our volunteer team, 10 of whom have just become part of the volunteers’ team this Spring, when the Core Training was delivered with the support of previous volunteers Yvie, Donald and Sophia. These new volunteers are now gradually getting their hands on sessions and various opportunities and initiatives, for example volunteer Ruth will shadow for the 1st time at a session this Friday. It’s truly a thrilling time for learning and development time for volunteers at Fast Forward.

In the past few months, volunteers’ contribution has ranged from sessions and events for No Knives Better Lives to Peer Education Projects, such as at Boroughmuir High School with Donald and another at Gracemount High School with Karen.

This winter, amongst other things, volunteer Emily has collaborated with SPEN by creating a video on Peer Education, and volunteer Manon has supported us in writing a funding application for a volunteer-led peer education training for young people in Shetlands. Also, most recently, volunteer Linz has engaged in developing a new project proposal for an initiative around primary school children’s health and wellbeing.

Moreover, volunteers Gemma, Rochelle, Manon, Zee and Megan are currently working in partnership with our staff team to create a new Tobacco Leaflet. Volunteers Yannis, Gemma, Karen and Veselina delivered a peer education training session for the peer educators at Edinburgh Young Carers Project. Soon after that volunteers Yannis and Megan led a workshop on peer education for a group of 8 European young people, at a residential run by Stand International.

There are many more events and workshops where our volunteers have participated, including sessions in local youth clubs and youth centres as well as external events. For example, volunteer Jenny has represented Fast Forward at a live broadcast for Choices for Life and Karen participated in a European Seminar in Hutten, Germany, devising a toolkit on peer education. Linz attended a European Seminar in Madrid.

Chairman of our Board, Dave Evans with the Lord Provost of Edinburgh and his Inspiring Volunteer Award

This week, particularly, we are honoured to give the Inspiring Volunteering Achievement Award to Peer Educators Donald and Karen and to Chairman of our board, Dave Evans. Additionally, we are thrilled to announce that volunteers Donald and Manon have become part of our Board.

Here in the office we are all very fond and proud of our volunteers, and so grateful for all what they do, bringing in so much creativity, enthusiasm, skills and willingness to make the most of this experience.

At Fast Forward we also constantly work towards improving the quality of our involvement and support of volunteers, reason why we are now working towards the Investing in Volunteers Award – watch this blog space for more info.

If these opportunities sound like something you’d like to get involved in, and if you are a young person (16-25yrs) or a young parent (16-30yrs), please do not hesitate to get in touch by emailing Chiara at chiara@fastforward.org.uk .