Jonathon Stevens:

"My name is Jonathon Stevens and I am currently volunteering full-time in Bristol. I volunteer with a number of different organisations in the city. I currently spend 2 days a week with Bristol's vinvolved team which is part of a national youth volunteering program. I am carrying out research into the volunteering habits of people aged 20-25 who are in fulltime employment. I spend 2 days a week with the British Red Cross working with their Community Based First Aid Team. I have been given the role of setting up a project to deliver tailored first aid training to homeless individuals and people who work with them in Bristol. I spend my other day volunteering doing research and administration for a small charity called African Initiatives. I spend two hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays volunteering with the NHS. I spend one evening in the Children's Hospital play centre and another on a ward in Southmead Hospital.

If I'm honest I sort of fell into fulltime volunteering. I had volunteered in various roles when I was at university. I had volunteered abroad twice in Ghana and India and had volunteered spending one afternoon a week in an Oxfam bookshop in Cardiff. I was living at home in Bristol and had a couple of months free. A job that I had applied for which would have lasted about a month fell through and didn’t feel that two months was a long enough period of time to find a fulltime job. I visited the Bristol Volunteer Centre with the hope of finding an organisation which wanted someone to volunteer fulltime for a couple of months. Ideally I was looking for a project role in which I could complete something definite in those two months as opposed to just helping with day to day tasks. I spent an hour having a good look at the hundreds of opportunities on offer and was unable to find anything that fitted that requirement. It seemed that all the organisations wanted volunteers who were able to commit to one-two days per week for a minimum of 3 months. Some of the opportunities on offer looked interesting. I was keen to take on roles where I would be able to have a large degree of control over a project or task. I felt confident enough to take on a project and the responsibility that came with it. I felt like a position in a charity shop or doing some general office work for a charity would not be challenging and engaging enough.

I decided then and there whilst in the volunteering centre that I would put other plans on hold and I would set aside 3 months to volunteer fulltime. The prospect of being able to have a varied week spending a few days with a few organisations seemed like an exciting one. I was in the fortunate position of living at home and so I knew that money would be tight but that the financial strain of having no income for 3 months would be manageable. I printed off five of the most interesting opportunities and started to email the organisations.

The main barrier that I have found to fulltime volunteering is getting started initially. Knowing that I only had a limited period of time available I was keen to get going straight away. It was quite frustrating to email some of the advertising charities only to find out that the role advertised was filled months ago or to visit and find that the actual role didn't really fit the description advertised. By the time all of the correspondences had been made, first meetings set up and application forms filled out etc a few of the twelve weeks had already ticked by.

It is now almost four months since I decided that fulltime volunteering was the best option for me. I have thoroughly enjoyed the work that I have been doing and decided at Christmas when the three months I had set aside were up that I would volunteer for another 3 months, continuing the work that I had started with the Red Cross and perhaps looking for something new to start, with some of my other projects drawing to a close.

I hope at some point in the future to work in the charitable sector but for the foreseeable future a job in the public sector, be it local government or the NHS, seems like the right choice for me. Whatever sector of employment you are interested in there is no doubt that the skills and experiences you pick up when volunteering fulltime will be of great benefit. For me the research skills and project management experience that I have gained will prove very useful in the coming months with interviews on the horizon. Having the opportunity to really give something back and focus all of your energies on trying to do something which will benefit people and the communities that they live in is a real privilege. Fulltime volunteering really allows you to get a lot done whilst gaining a lot of experience in a short space of time. Another benefit is that you really feel like you are part of the team that you work in.

I knew that I wouldn’t be in a position to be doing this a few years down the line so decided to grab the opportunity now. I'm really glad I did."