Community Activity

At University I did voluntary work for the Nottingham Youth Offending Team, helping teach young offenders basic literacy and numeracy skills. I was also a volunteer for Age Concern and for the New Deal scheme. The latter involved mentoring a person in long-term unemployment and helping them get back to work. During my time at Law School I was a volunteer at Harmondsworth Detention Centre.

In the summer of 2000 I combined my desire to do voluntary work with my interest in other cultures by helping out at a school in Romania. I also did voluntary work in Nagasaki, Japan, assisting in an Old Peoples’ Home and summer school.

Probably my most enjoyable and interesting experience of voluntary work was in Kosovo. In 2003 I spent a month teaching in a town that had suffered greatly during the Kosovan War. After my period of teaching, I stayed on in the country and interviewed people about the war as research for my University dissertation.

The organisation that I went to Japan and Kosovo with is called the International Voluntary Service (“IVS”). If you are interested in doing voluntary work abroad or in Britain, I thoroughly recommend visiting their website. They run various projects lasting between 2 weeks and 12 months in countries all over the world. It costs around £200 plus your travel costs to participate.