11 civil servants from 6 departments, and a dentist, volunteered over a day and half in January to decorate two large, shared houses occupied by people with learning disabilities for the Brandon Trust.
Brandon Trust is a charity that supports over 1400 young people and adults with learning disabilities and autism. Their aim is to give everyone with a learning disability the chance to be the person they want to be and to live the life they want to live.
Brandon Trust is extremely grateful to those who took the time to volunteer and for CS Local for making this happen.
Foizia Begum (Inspector for the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration) tells us about their experience!
Our group of volunteers from 6 departments across the civil service came together to support the Brandon Trust in its desire to improve the quality of life of people living with learning disabilities. We were asked to paint and brighten up 8 rooms for the residents.
Our group of volunteers from 6 departments across the civil service came together to support the Brandon Trust in its desire to improve the quality of life of people living with learning disabilities. We were asked to paint and brighten up 8 rooms for the residents.
We were split into two teams and given 4 rooms each to paint over the course of two days. In some of the bedrooms we were asked to transform deep blue walls into a calming magnolia oasis. Initially, we thought this would be fairly straightforward. Oh how wrong we were. The blue hue was persistent and it was only after a total of four coats we could say Blue walls 0 - Volunteers 1!
The work was hard and required climbing up and down ladders, a steady hand and a lot patience (a bit like waiting for paint to dry!) But it was worth it to see the final results and an absolute delight to see how our efforts were received by the staff and residents. The abundance of tea, biscuits and snacks from Ghada and her team also helped.
We highly recommend the volunteering opportunities available through Civil Service Local. We came away with a sense of achievement, new skills and we met some interesting people. The Trust provides an invaluable service for the local community, and it was incredibly satisfying to be able to contribute in a small way.
Volunteering may be a way to help you in developing your skills, an opportunity to demonstrate existing skills ready for a new job, or more generally a great way to give back to the wider community.
Three days a year special leave for volunteering – guaranteed
Sir Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service
Interested and looking for similar cross-departmental volunteering opportunities or other volunteering programmes please contact us.