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GoldStar - Promoting good practice in managing volunteers from socially excluded groups

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Project	Description
The Latin American Women's Rights Service	Promoting active citizenship and mutual support for Latin American women

The Latin American Women's Rights Service (LAWRS) was set up 23 years ago in recognition that women in that community carry a disproportionate share of the problems of displacement, are more socially and economically excluded and are more likely to experience abuse and oppression at home and elsewhere.

The Volunteering Project aims to promote active citizenship and mutual networks of support through purposeful volunteering opportunities to enable Latin American women volunteers to gain work experience and skills to progress on to better jobs and opportunities, increase their own self-confidence and to enable these women to use their new skills to contribute to improving the lives of other Latin American women experiencing disadvantage.

Following experience and data collection from previous recruitment drives, LAWRS have devised a formal strategy for continuous recruitment, a much more comprehensive database of local community media, and have established reliable contacts with various community media channels. This strategy ensures that publicity and information is accessible to the Latin American community, in terms of language and format, location, and imagery. A website is being updated and outreach recruitment is done through roadshows and cultural events.

LAWRS’ organisational capacity has increased as a result of increasing the volunteer base, which has freed up staff time and allowed more service users to be attended. Some of the results of this include updated publicity and a new database of press contacts, Brazilian community outreach work, fundraising, statistical collection, additional support for housebound elderly, and women with mental health or emotional problems. All of this significantly enhances the outcomes that LAWRS is able to achieve for Latin American women.

An important outcome of LAWRS work is opening up pathways to employment for the volunteers. At least 51% of all volunteers have gone on to better jobs or further education since being at LAWRS. Volunteers are given assistance with finding jobs, help with compiling a CV, workshops and a vacancies e-bulletin. Assistance is provided for helping improve spoken and written English. As work experience with LAWRS is well structured around work shadowing, work plans and set objectives, volunteers adjust to the world of work in the UK.

In addition a variety of specialised training is available for volunteers. Full courses are held for specific teams of volunteers, such as 2-week publicity training for the publicity team, 8-week training and rehearsals for theatrical volunteers, 3-week IT training for project volunteers and a 6-week course of advice-giving skills run by Advice UK for outreach and advice volunteers. Volunteers are also sent on external training through other organisations.

Sound management practices and procedures underpin all activity.

LAWRS works continuously to evidence their quality assurance, and currently hold the Investors in People and Quality Mark level 2 for their advice work, recognition of the standard of work and organisation the volunteers come to learn in. They have been recommended in full to receive the Investing in Volunteers standard, which they worked towards with funding from Volunteering England.

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