Last year, almost 1000 students volunteered through the VSU, helping out on 140 different projects.
Our surveys show that students volunteer for a combination of reasons – the most popular being ‘to give something back to the community’ and ‘it will be a useful experience’. Most students showed this mixture of a desire to help with a recognition that volunteering is also useful for their own personal development.
Our surveys also show that students do indeed get these benefits. 95% (of 119 volunteers) said that their sense of civic engagement had increased, and 95% said that they’d developed useful skills or become more employable.
One in five students had said that volunteering had even helped them with their academic work.
To read what some of our volunteers, have to say, visit our profiles page.
To download the findings of our student survey in 2006, click here.