Youth Volunteer (Youth Fellowship (Gloucester))

Join us as a Youth Volunteer as part of our Youth Fellowship Programme.

The Youth Fellowship is an opportunity for young people to develop and exercise their leadership and innovation skills, whilst supporting the Trust to solve challenges that exist in local communities across the canal network. Whether it be through community cohesion events, sports activities, health and wellbeing events or effective campaigning, we are empowering young people to lead change in their communities. We also expect some of the Youth Fellows to go on to get involved in decision-making at the Trust, bringing fresh perspectives to help us shape the future direction of our work and use the programme to evolve how we work with young people across the organisation. The Fellowship offers the opportunity to have a real say and make a tangible difference to the running and future direction of a large, national charity. You will be part of a values-based organisation that is committed to enhancing the wellbeing of its colleagues and volunteers and will have the opportunity to participate in social and teambuilding activities with other Fellows and wider Trust teams.

The programme is made up of three main strands all of which offer training and development opportunities.

Social Innovation: This is where our commitment to giving you ownership over our organisation’s direction is shown. Fellows will have the opportunity to design and manage a 4-month project that will be focused on community engagement, relationship building and improving health and wellbeing in local communities. The project’s goal is to influence changes in habits and behaviour that currently have an adverse effect on the canal ecology and environment, whilst increasing the level of physical activity that local people engage in on or near the canals. We encourage you to take the lead and show us how transformative your solutions are. You will receive training around project planning and management, practical delivery of activities (including Safety, Risk Assessments and leading others) and impact measurement.

Professional Development: We know that with new skills and experiences you will become more effective not just as Fellows, but as professionals in whatever career you pursue. As part of this programme we have created a wide range of online and in-person training on topics such as Public Speaking, Leading Teams, Agile Project Management, Design Thinking, Event Management and much more. Professional mentoring is also being offered.

Brand Ambassador: This is not just about you championing the work that we do as an organisation, but also us committing to champion you as Fellows. You will have the opportunity to represent the Trust at high profile events and conferences sharing your own experiences and helping to raise our profile and awareness of our work amongst new audiences. Through this you will help to transform what we do and become true role models amongst other young people in your communities and the wider charity and environmental sector. We will recognise this by giving you real responsibility and profiling and celebrating your role across our media and marketing channels. As well as helping to raise awareness of the Trust and our work, this exposure will help you to build your professional networks and your personal brand.

We want to break down barriers to participation in this opportunity. We will reimburse any expenses incurred in full and will also make any reasonable adjustments for applicants. Please contact us to discuss any specific needs you may have.