Ponthafren Project - update

Those of you who are regular visitors to the blog, may recall that Ponthafren Association in Newtown, were successful in receiving a Gwir Vol grant towards ‘Anim8 2 Motiv8’ - a series of taster workshops to capture young people’s thoughts and ideas on what inspires them to volunteer. This will then be followed by a series of animation workshops involving young people, with the aim of producing a DVD on the ‘story’ of what Ponthafren does and the benefits of volunteering.


Well the good news is that this project is nearly completed. The public relations group will be available to come out to youth volunteering events to share it with your groups. Please ring 01686 621586 if you would like us to come out and show the animation to encourage youth volunteering.


Thanks to Ponthafren for the update - if you take up the opportunity we'd love to hear from you.

Ponthafren Success with Gwirvol grant

The Ponthafren Association in Newtown, has been awarded £4,130 from the GwirVol grant scheme.

The award-winning Powys charity provides support, information and education to members of the community affected by mental health issues and/or social exclusion or isolation. ‘Anim8 2 Motiv8’ will be a series of taster workshops to capture young people’s thoughts and ideas on what inspires them to volunteer. This will then be followed by a series of animation workshops involving young people, with the aim of producing a DVD on the ‘story’ of what Ponthafren does and the benefits of volunteering.

Nicky Morris Co-ordinator at Ponthafren said “we are very excited about this grant which will help us to target young people between the ages of 16 and 25 in a way that will really work. My son is 17 and I had produced a leaflet which was supposed to be aimed at encouraging young people to volunteer – he took one look at my attempt and said that if he was given the leaflet he would not have read beyond the second paragraph as it was ‘way too wordy and boring’! This made me rethink the whole way in which we engage young people and instead of inflicting my ideas on them – for the ideas to come from the young people themselves. We have now carried out the first of our initial taster sessions with Health and Social Care Students from Coleg Powys and have received very positive and helpful feedback that the project is going to be a great opportunity to support young people on their career pathway – volunteering will give them the experience they need to gain employment within the Health and Social Care setting and inspire them to great things.”

(Source WCVA / Ponthafren Association)

Congratulations and thank you to Ponthafren for sharing their success with us, we look forward to seeing the results of this project.

GWIRVOL - INTERNATIONAL YOUTH VOLUNTEERING GRANT SCHEME - NOW OPEN

GwirVol is a Welsh partnership designed to promote, support and drive forward youth volunteering.

The 2010/11 round of GwirVol's International Youth Volunteering Grant Scheme is now open to applications. The scheme aims to support opportunities for young people aged between 16 and 25 in disadvantaged and minority communities in Wales to volunteer internationally.

Grants of up to £30,000 are available to fund a structured programme of activities. The GwirVol Partnership will support up to 80% of the total project costs.

Funded activities might include the following:

• Volunteer recruitment, eg promotional events, taster sessions and publicity.
• Volunteer development and preparation, eg training, team-building, mentoring and awareness raising.
• Volunteer participation - eg travel and subsistence, support to host communities and equipment.
• Sharing learning outcomes, eg presentation events, digital reports, website information and evaluation.

The scheme is open to non-profit distributing third sector organisations in Wales.

The closing date for applications is 24 November 2010.