Why Volunteer?

• Get Sociable! Go Volunteer promotes volunteering that allows you to interact with people from over 50 different countries and builds on your knowledge of other cultures.
• Develop your Employability: Craft a wide range of existing skills and gain the opportunity to enhance your existing talents.
• Improve your CV: Compliment your academic achievements with skills developed through volunteering and make your CV stand out from a sea of applications.
• Relieve Stress: Engage with the community and relieve academic pressures, there is no better way to have a bit of rest from studying.
• It's Flexible: Go Volunteer has more than 200 regular opportunities as well as a variety of one-off projects you can get involved with. It's easy to find a project to fit your timetable.

Our students get up to some great things whilst they're at University. That’s why every year we love to celebrate all your achievements through a host of different awards ceremonies, celebrating everyone from individual volunteers to Academic Reps and Societies.

Community Impact Awards

NUSU has its very own Community Impacts Awards, specifically aimed at students who get involved with volunteering. Whether you’ve volunteered internally or off-campus, long-term or short, you deserve to be recognised for the impact you’ve had. 

Pride of Newcastle University Awards

The Pride of Newcastle University Awards recognise students’ achievements and contribution to University life and the wider community through your extra-curricular activities. We recognise all your work from volunteering, student groups, representation, community work to entrepreneurial activity and so much more. Enter to win a prestigious award, up to £250 cash prize, and attend the glittering ceremony to celebrate the best of the best. Find out more here. 

Ncl+ Award – Accreditation Scheme

The ncl+ Award accreditation scheme is a way for you to gain recognition and credit on your academic transcript for all the time and effort you put in to extra-curricular activities. Find out more here. 

At Go Volunteer we encourage students to step out of their comfort zone to become project leads and marketing coordinators. Both of these opportunities are fantastic ways to develop, lead, manage and promote projects which have a positive effect on the local community. Along the way you will develop the key skills future employers look for allowing you to really stand out on job applications and in interviews.

Become a Project Leader

Are you an organised person who likes to develop and take the initiative? Our project leaders coordinate a team of volunteers to ensure the effective delivery of a student-led community-benefit project. By managing the project’s activities, you will oversee that all activities are performed safely and alongside your volunteer team take responsibility for the project’s evaluation and ongoing sustainability. Don’t worry though, you won’t be doing all this work alone. But you will be responsible for delegating day-to-day tasks to your excellent volunteer team, coordinating the workloads of your team and supporting them in their roles. You will also act as a spokesperson for the project and act as a central point of contact for the partner organisations your project works with.

To fulfil this role, you will need to be self-motivated and able to work independently. As we said before, you won’t be alone in this process as our Go Volunteer staff are always available to provide support. For further details please contact Phil hay at volunteercoordinator.union@ncl.ac.uk.

Become a Marketing Coordinator

Are you a social media whizz? Interested in developing your marketing skills including copywriting for web, email, and press releases? How does coordinating social media and campus outreach sound? At Go Volunteer, we are always on the lookout for students who are interested in helping us spread the word of what we do for students and the wider community. Our volunteer marketing coordinator positions are available in a flexible position, however, you will be required to attend a range of Go Volunteer projects, from outdoor activities to sessions at local schools and community sessions. You will then market these projects by utilising our social media channels and writing copy in our weekly newsletters and on our website.

Go Volunteer prides itself on flexibility and therefore we offer a range of flexible positions to fit around your timetable and other commitments.

To fulfill this role, you will need to be self-motivated and able to work independently. However, you won’t be alone in this process as our Go Volunteer staff are always available to provide support. For further details please contact Phil hay at volunteercoordinator.union@ncl.ac.uk.

Below you can see some testimonials from students who have undertaken our Volunteering opportunities:

Fabian McLaughlan

My main role at N.E.S.T is to lead the Explore Project, where we organise and deliver trips around Northumbria for asylum seekers and refugees. It’s hard to summarise how incredible volunteering has been. Whilst it’s not always been easy (nothing that’s worth it ever is), it has improved my mental health, given me opportunities to develop my skillset beyond what it really should be at this point in my life and helped me to meet some fantastic people (we always say that N.E.S.T is more of a family than an organisation and it couldn’t be more true).

Alex Grunnill

I’ve loved meeting people I’d never have the chance to normally. It’s really interesting speaking with immigrants especially and finding out why they have (sometimes had to) come to the UK. Now I better understand what people are like and what there up against, when often you get a quite negative perspective from the media.My communication has improved for sure, so has my confidence when talking with groups of people. It’s also useful from a linguistics point of view – I can draw on things I learn as part of my course, but the sessions also help me to recognise and better understand what I’ve learnt in context.

Mahalia Flasz

Whilst volunteering with Go Volunteer, I was a project leader as well as a general volunteer for my peers. This involved planning and organising every detail for my school visits and keeping in contact with Project Worker Mike as well as the school and recruiting volunteers. I have learned so much from my time with Go Volunteer such as communication, problem solving, team work and planning skills which will help me throughout the rest of my time at university as well as throughout my career. In terms of advice, all I would say is grab every opportunity you can, you make so many new friends you wouldn’t have met if not.

Alex McVeigh

There are so many skills that I'm taking away from this opportunity. My confidence, ability to work effectively in a team and presentation skills have increased massively, alongside my cultural awareness. Most importantly for me, I've been able to meet people from all over the world and learn about their cultures while simultaneously teaching them about mine, ultimately contributing to an increasingly global mind set. The advice I would give is, not having time is not an excuse! Even dedicating 10 minutes of your day that otherwise would be spent scrolling through Instagram to do something worthwhile to help someone else.

Poorna Vijay Singh

I started volunteering in my 3rd year at university. Volunteering helped me expand my social circle. Interacting with a diverse range of people gave me the opportunity to learn outside the four walls of my lecture theatre. Participating or leading various community projects gave me invaluable experiences to reflect upon for interviews. Finally, doing my bit for the community gave me an overall sense of satisfaction. My only regret is why I didn’t start volunteering earlier.

Tammy Olushina

My main role at Go Volunteer is to be the student leader for the Second Life Project, where we teach students how upcycle i.e turn trash into treasure. It was a lot of work and I ended up wearing a lot of hats over the year; teacher, accountant, evaluator, coordinator, but I can say it was worth it. I've had the chance to juggle so much with my degree and really build a skill set that I can put into practice. The one thing I loved about working with volunteers has been their willingness to try.

Kirsty Hayward

In 2nd year, I became a club leader, I ran two Code Clubs, encouraging young people to explore coding and programming and engaging other students to volunteer for S4A. Running my own club helped me develop a huge range of leadership, communication and organisational skills, and having more responsibility built my confidence. Volunteering with an opportunity like this felt incredibly worthwhile. S4A made me feel valued and supported as part of their team throughout the time I was working for them. My experience has been invaluable as a unique and interesting topic to talk about interviews.

Hugh O'Neill

I had something unique in my experience with Stu Brew. Without my involvement in Stu Brew I definitely wouldn’t have this job that I love, I probably wouldn’t have considered working in this industry. The skills I have developed whilst volunteering with Stu Brew include: Working to a deadline, managing a group of people, social media management, public speaking, finance and legal experience, purchasing and sourcing of equipment, giving presentations, critical thinking, market research and branding.