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UCD Volunteer Day 2018

10/10/2018

UCD in the Community were delighted to host the inaugural UCD Volunteer Day on October 3 2018! 

There were various events that took place across campus throughout the day and was a great way for anyone interested in volunteering to find out more and get involved.

Volunteer Fair

11:00 - 14:30, ground floor, UCD O' Brien Centre for Science (East)

There were a wide range of visiting community-based organisations at the UCD in the Community Volunteer Fair from 11am - 2:30pm. The Fair allowed people to chat with representatives from the visiting organisations and sign up to volunteer with them. This event was open to UCD students, employees and alumni.

Visiting organisations included:

Volunteering and Your Career

UCD Careers Network, 12:00 - 12:45, B006, School of Health Sciences, Nursing and Midwifery

Michelle Coen and Rebecca Boyle, UCD Careers Network, provided a workshop on how students can use volunteering to further their career, including what potential employers look for in graduates and how you can include the skills you have learned through volunteering to further your career prospects!

UCD Intergenerational Jigsaw Club Pop-Up

Ground floor, O' Brien Centre for Science, 12:00 - 13:00

The UCD Institute for Discovery, with generously acknowledged support from UCD in the Community, launched a "cultivating community" initiative called 'The Intergenerational Jigsaw Clubin April 2018. 

The idea behind the club is to facilitate inter-generational human connection by bringing together members of the UCD community (students, employees, & alumni) with members of the wider community.  The club provides jigsaw puzzles and a fun space, and hopes that people from 12 to 112 years old will come and enjoy the company, conversation, and puzzle completion. Students from local schools Muckross Park College and Gonzaga College are championing this initiative and also hope to start the habit of life-long volunteering.

The Jigsaw Club takes place from 14:30 - 16:30 every Friday in the Institute for Discovery (ground floor, Science Hub). 

For Volunteer Day 2018, the Jigsaw Club kindly offered to hold a pop-up club, for anyone who wished to take part. The Jigsaw Club pop-up proved to be very popular!

Exploring Development Education with UCDVO

UCD Volunteers Overseas, 13:00 - 13:40, Red Room, Student Centre

Are you interested in learning about development education? Do you want to hear about opportunities to engage in activism and awareness raising activities? 

UCDVO offers a wide range of opportunities to the UCD community – the UCDVO Volunteering & Development Education Programme seeks to ensure that participants are responsible, responsive and ethical in their approach to international volunteering and activities both within and outside of the Programme aim to deepen understandings of the world in which we live and equip participants with the tools to act for a more just and sustainable world. 

UCD Volunteers Overseas held a workshop on Exploring Development Education, where two returned volunteers explored the concept of development education, spoke about the scope of opportunities within and outside of the UCDVO Programme and shared their own personal experiences with development education activities on campus.

UCD Employee Volunteering Policy

UCD Culture and Engagement, 13:15 - 13:45, O'Connor Theatre, O'Brien Centre for Science

UCD seeks to play a leading role in the socio-economic and cultural development of the communities that it serves and to continually animate our values, in particular those of engagement, integrity and diversity.  As part of its commitment to community engagement, the University has introduced an Employee Volunteering Policy. This policy supports our employees by allowing them to allocate work time to engage in volunteering activities. This policy was implemented on September 1 2018.

UCD Culture and Engagement provided details on the new UCD Employee Volunteering Policy, the application process, and answered any questions employees in the audience had. Caroline Mangan, Manager of UCDVO also presented on how UCD Employees can volunteer with UCDVO.

UCD in the Community would like to take this opportunity to extend a heartfelt thank you to all our visiting organisations, speakers, students, employees and alumni who attended and presented at the UCD Volunteer Day. We look forward to seeing you all again next year!

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