Volunteer Centre Westminster response to Communities and Local Government Committee Inquiry - Community Cohesion and Migration

The following response is being submitted as a result of a request made by Phyllis Starkey MP at the Migration Parliamentary Group on Wednesday 30 January 2008.

 

Volunteer Centre Westminster's mission is to transform lives through volunteering. We aim to increase the quality, quantity and diversity of volunteering and active citizenship in the City of Westminster. In additional we aim to maintain an effective and sustainable infrastructure for the strategic development of volunteering. As part of our work, since 2003 we have provided refugees and asylum seekers with specialised support to enable them to use volunteering as a means of more effectively integrated into British society. We have found that encouraging migrants to volunteer is an excellent way of them being able to improve their English within a realistic and practical setting. Volunteering when migrants undertake it outside of their own communities can also be an excellent way of breaking down barriers and promoting community cohesion.

 

With three years initial funding the project secured continuation funding in 2006 enabling us to develop its work taking people to the next level, i.e. from volunteering into paid employment. Both areas of the project have been featured in significant national and European reports which I would like to draw to the committee's attention.

 

The first, European Report produced by the European Volunteer Centre actually describes the benefit volunteering has for third country migrants in a number of European countries and provides an interesting comparison between them and the UK. (Volunteer Centre Westminster's project is featured on page 60). It also looks at the benefits for the respective countries of involving this group in volunteering.

 

http://www.involve-europe.eu/pdf/INVOLVEreportEN.pdf

 

Second, I'd like to draw the committee's attention to a UK based study of refugees and asylum seekers volunteering. The study draws together case studies from ten organisations one of which is Volunteer Centre Westminster. It provides an excellent account of the positive difference volunteering can make, once again both for the migrants who volunteer and those in the local community in receipt of the volunteering.

 

http://www.tandem-uk.com/APartofSociety.pdf