VOLUNTEERING
There are different ways people can participate in their communities. From random acts of kindness to participation, informal volunteering and formal volunteering.
This social connection and sense of purpose in life via volunteering and participation is vital to our health and wellbeing and the social cohesion and backbone of our community.
Centre for Participation is the go-to place for anything volunteering. Both for those individuals who are looking for volunteering opportunities and those organisations who would like to build and strengthen their volunteer programs.
Volunteers
Centre for Participation offers many volunteering opportunities internally, such as meals on wheels delivery driver roles, L2P learner driver mentor roles, social support transport roles, course assistant roles, disability support roles, community bus and regional transport roles and many more.
Please click here to see our current volunteer vacancies and how to apply for them.
We also offer support, training and guidance for local volunteering organisations who might be looking at strengthening or building their volunteer programs.
We can support with guidance on governance, set up and delivery of programs and training of volunteer managers through different avenues including Volunteering Victoria.
We can provide information about accessibility guides and disability inclusion, working with CALD communities or how to ensure your volunteer organisation is inclusive towards First Nation people.
Click here for the disability e-learning modules, relevant to work places and volunteering organisations wanting to ensure inclusion for people living with disabilities.
Click here for our Centre for Participation Reconciliation Action Plan. You are welcome to use this as a guide for your own organisation.
Volunteer Managers and others who work with and lead volunteers are welcome to become involved in our Volunteer Managers Network Meeting. Click here to express your interest.
As we know, formal volunteering in Australia is in decline, especially since the Covid pandemic. At Centre for Participation, we are invested in community participation and volunteering long term and have completed research into thriving communities. We have developed a Wimmera Southern Mallee 10-year Regional Participation Action Plan with the dedicated support of regional stakeholders in volunteering. Through community consultation and stakeholder workshops we gained insight into structural and social barriers that are getting in the way of supporting all people to actively participate in their communities. Through the development of the Action Plan we identified 6 key pillars of action to ensure thriving community participation going forward.
These pillars are:
- Places to participate; maximizing our build and natural assets
- Participation for everyone; harnessing our diversity and enabling inclusive participation
- Working together; collaborating for increased participation and our mutual benefit
- Investing in participation; advocating for participation infrastructure, initiatives and
resources - Promoting participation; understanding, navigating and encouraging participation
opportunities - Sparking individual participation; individually taking action
For the full report, key pillars and actions, please click here
We are committed to see our local communities thrive and people able to fully participate.