Volunteering Provides a Pathway to Employment for Holly

 

Holly always liked helping people, but as a full-time carer for her Grandmother was finding it difficult to make time for other things.

About Holly

Holly went to Connexions and was advised that volunteering might be the way forward, both to make her job ready and to give her the opportunity to meet new people. Up until that point, caring for her Grandmother meant that Holly wasn’t able to make plans or think about working.

With the support of her uncle, Holly went to the Volunteer Centre in Wandsworth to speak to a youth volunteer advisor and explore her options. She decided to volunteer for the Blue Peter Christmas Card Appeal for Whizz Kidz over the summer, to give her a taster of volunteering. She then went on to volunteer with a friend at the Sutton Ecology Centre, and also helped out for a session in a local Oxfam shop.

Employment

Holly found that volunteering helped her build the confidence she needed to start looking for work. A couple of months after volunteering for Whizz Kidz, Holly went into a local retail shop and asked about current opportunities. She received an interview, was successful, and now works at Robert Dyas five mornings a week.

“My mum was really pleased...And she really thinks it has helped me with my confidence and she is so pleased I got this job. There’s actually hope!”

Building Confidence

Volunteering also encouraged Holly to build her confidence and talk to new people, both younger and older. The support she received from family and friends along the way was also key.

“Apart from helping my Nan, I hadn’t really done any kind of work. Volunteering wasn’t exactly shop work but just working at anything helped. Before I just didn’t have a concept of working because I’ve never really done it.”

Volunteering with friends gave Holly the support she needed to talk to others. But she was also clear about what she hoped to achieve through her volunteering: “I just felt, if I don’t do volunteering, I won’t have anything on my CV and it will really help with my confidence. I just felt I had to do something.”

The future

So what does the future hold? Holly is adjusting to her new job and enjoying this time to make new friends and build her skills. She would love to volunteer again in the future, though. For her, the best thing about volunteering was ‘getting to help people’. Holly could see the real difference her help was giving to others, and it also gave her the confidence to go out and find paid work.