The Galleon - Portsmouth's Official Student Newspaper

The University of Portsmouth Students’ Union (UPSU) took part in Student Volunteering Week. From February 21 – 27 a number of events were held around the University designed to educate people about the value of volunteering and the different ways in which you can do so.

Among the events were over 25 taster sessions in sports and media, drop in sessions at the Purple Door centre, community events such as coffee, cakes and bingo with the elderly at Southsea Social Club, an intergenerational gardening project and raffles.

The week concluded with a grand finale on the Friday, with Third Space playing host to a Volunteering and Careers Fayre where organisations held stalls and advertised their volunteering projects. Of particular note was the attendance of the Portsmouth branch of ‘Read International’, an organisation which collects second hand books and distributes them to schools across Tanzania and Uganda.

One of the organisers of the week, VP for Welfare and Volunteering Amy Baker said: “This is the first year that it’s not just only our department [UPSU Volunteering] that have got involved in it. We’ve tried to branch out and get the whole union involved.”

Another of the organisers, Vounteering Co-ordinator Shelley Davies said: “We wanted to show everybody that volunteering isn’t just going to the old people’s home, it is sports, it is media. It is community volunteering, but community volunteering can be really fun. “It’s about getting rid of the preconception of what a volunteer is basically.”

The coup de grace of the week was a duo of dynamic events tied in with the week, in media and sport. The first being student radio station Pure FM’s long awaited ‘I’m a Student Get me Out Of Here’ event, upstairs in the Union Building. Students were locked up ‘Big Brother’ style for 31 hours and forced to perform tasks to win prizes, all the while being filmed for purefm.com. The event ended at 5pm on the following Saturday, and all proceeds went to Raising and Giving (RAG).

The second event was a sporting endeavour. Katie Stephenson, Kirsty Loveridge and Amy Hawkins of the UPSU Rugby Club cycled around the Isle of Wight in aid of the Alzheimer’s Society, part of their Miles for Memories undertaking.

The trio are also due to cycle across America in Summer. Look out for coverage of the Mile for Memories endeavour and other volunteer events in a future edition of Pugwash News.