Meet Paulina: Volunteering in the fundraising team

Hi! My name is Paulina Pérez Yeo an exchange student from México. This blog details about my experience volunteering for Julian House, from how I heard about them to tasks and finishing with what I’m taking back home.

How did you first get involved at Julian House?

I got firstly involved on a school project, a fund-raising event for Julian House. My team and I did a Mario Kart competition. To understand the project, Rachel Avent, part of the Julian House team, came to our university and introduced what was the charity about.

Why were you interested in volunteering?

I had a lot of free time. Mainly I wanted to experience the British work culture and I thought that by volunteering I could contextualise myself on it and still learn a lot from the organization.

Why is it important to volunteer as a student?

Most of the jobs nowadays require previous work experience. Volunteering is very attractive as a student, we have time over the summer, and usually, compared to a paid position, volunteer roles have less rigorous entry requirements. By volunteering it shows that the student is engaged and cares about the community, while at the same time helps to build up their CV with experience.

What sort of tasks did you help with?

My volunteer at Julian House started the 8th of June with the “West Fest”. Here I

helped with the charity promotion kids’ activities to develop during the one-day festival. I had a lot of fun, and the kids did as well. It was a nice event with meaning and cause behind. At first, I was very nervous of not getting along but the team were quick to make me regain confidence and I feel glad, accomplished and proud that I could give back to the community during my stay in the UK.

 Apart from this event I attended to their main office in Bath.

On the 10th my task was to develop ideas that attracted future students to volunteer. I developed 2 designs to be used in Bath Spa University. One addressing the general student population that was looking to gain work experience. The later targeting international students that wanted to extend their stay by volunteering.

The 11th I started by doing research on homelessness statistics Julian House could potentially use later to engage future clients. This research topics such as domestic abuse, leaving prison or hospital, hidden homelessness, among others.

Would you say that you have learnt anything from volunteering with us?

From my volunteer I have become aware how big homelessness really is. I was quite detached to the reality of thousands and Julian House helped me understand how the situation really is nowadays with the research task. They also taught me how difficult it is to address it and how hard it is to get people on board with the volunteer attraction task.

At Julian House we have volunteer opportunities for students to get involved and gain experience. Whether this is fundraising or finance, retail or events, we have plenty of volunteering opportunities.

Volunteer with us