04 June 2021
This Volunteers’ Week, Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment are thanking their people for everything they are doing to support international communities, as well as the many organisations they partner with, who provide volunteering opportunities. Despite the challenges of the last year, more than 100 colleagues have given more than 1000 hours to community projects.
Teams and individuals at Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment are encouraged to volunteer to support their core mission and unlock potential in their global communities, as well as for skills development and wellbeing.
Some of the projects they’ve been working on together have included:
- providing mentoring and language learning support for refugees in Jordan and Lebanon, as part of a partnership with Kings College London and PADILEA
- transcribing audio interviews with Book Aid International partners, including staff and students at the St John of God College of Health Sciences in Malawi; and midwife, activist and writer Edna Adan Ismail
- helping judge a creative writing competition for the National Literacy Trust, giving children the opportunity to tell their own stories about their local areas
- packing and delivering food hampers to families over the Christmas, half term and Easter holidays
- running virtual work experience sessions for 200 school children in April and 230 children in June, in partnership with Form the Future and Nene Park Academy, Peterborough
João Madureira, Director of the Cambridge Brazil office, says: “We need to offer opportunities to our people to give back. It’s good to feel that you belong to an organisation that does this kind of community volunteering and it’s very good for morale”.
Robert Laing, Managing Director of the South Africa office, says: “We’ve always supported and volunteered for Mandela Day: prepared sandwiches and distributed to needy organisations; knitted blankets and scarves and distributed, and participated in the food parcel campaign”.
Georgia Robinson, who ran a Social Media task for a virtual work experience day, says: “It was so nice to do something a bit different and feel like I was having a direct impact on students. There was one girl who had been looking forward to us coming in all week! Seeing all the marketing ideas students came up with was really great and left me feeling inspired!”
Claire Sanders, who volunteers for the Crohn’s and Colitis Cambridgeshire and West Suffolk local charity network and also as a vaccination steward, says: “It feels great to be able to give back to our wonderful NHS. I also felt really fortunate that work have volunteer days that I can utilise for this”.
Heidi Mulvey, Head of Community Engagement at Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment, says: “Cambridge colleagues internationally feel very strongly about giving their time and skills to support their local communities. The year’s challenges have, if anything, reinforced that volunteering, culturally, is an integral and important part of our purpose”.