vInspired wins Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Volunteering Award
vInspired has been presented with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Volunteering Award 2012, in recognition of its work inspiring young people to volunteer, and in particular for its contribution to building volunteering legacy from the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The award is a one-off celebration of dedication to volunteering, marking the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, and has been awarded to just 60 organisations across the country.
vInspired provides opportunities for young people to reach their full potential through volunteering and social action. Through innovative online and offline programmes, vInspired reaches 145,000 young people each month, helping them do good things, regardless of their interests, abilities or circumstances. This means no single group is under-represented in its work. In the past six years, it has created more than 1 million volunteering opportunities and changed young people’s perceptions of volunteering. vInspired played a central role in the development of the Olympic Young Gamesmaker programme, recruiting young volunteers to select Gamesmakers, and advising on the volunteer management programme.
We also worked with 100 young people from under-privileged communities to create a volunteering legacy from the Olympics, through its London 2012 Young Leaders programme. Over two years, vInspired youth workers and mentors from BP supported them to set up community projects, with the opportunity to become young gamesmakers at the end of the programme.
vInspired’s contribution to Olympic volunteering was recognised by Lord Sebastian Coe, Chairman of LOCOG, who said prior to the games: “I strongly believe that our volunteers will make the difference between a good and great Games, and this would not have been made possible without the help of vInspired.”
vInspired CEO Terry Ryall said: “Volunteers and voluntary organisations are quite simply the life-blood of our communities. But, of course, they don’t always get the recognition they deserve. So we’re delighted to accept this award on behalf of the amazing young volunteers we know - those who made an amazing once-in-a-lifetime event happen for our country, but also those who turn up to an animal shelter every weekend in the wind and rain; and those who run football clubs, because if they didn’t the kids on their estates would be out causing trouble; and those who sit and listen to isolated elderly people when they have no-one else to talk to.
And we’re also proud to accept this award for ourselves, as a voluntary organisation that works hard to feed the rest of the voluntary sector with fresh, new life-blood. We make sure that those natural born community heroes can find their way to the causes that need them. And we make sure that those who wouldn’t be seen dead shaking a tin for charity can find fun, interesting ways to do good things.”
Want more information? Contact Janqui Mehta at [email protected]