On 26th October 2021, Shaping Our Lives and the Institute for Volunteering Research co-hosted a symposium to explore how volunteering underpins the way we see the world and how the way we see the world underpins the way we volunteer.
The aims of the event were to share current knowledge of volunteering and ideology and develop understanding of the complex relationship between volunteering and ideology.
To ignite the discussion, the panel members shared their position statements.
Ruth Leonard is Chair of the UK’s Association of Volunteer Managers whose day job is Head of Volunteering Development at Macmillan Cancer Support. For Ruth, volunteer management is about empowering and enabling people to bring creativity and ingenuity to a solution to make a difference in their community. Her current role is to consider strategically where volunteering can add value to developing solutions and to ensure a supportive infrastructure so people who want give their time can have a quality experience. Having been involved in volunteer management for nearly 2 decades she has significant experience at providing leadership on involving and engaging people and is committed to ensuring others are able to develop these skills.
Becki Meakin is the Involvement Manager of Shaping Our Lives, a national user-led organisation providing support and services in inclusive involvement practice. Becki is a Disabled person with understanding about the barriers and discriminations people experience when trying to access services. She has conducted many research studies into the inequalities experienced by people from marginalised and under-represented communities. She is also a trustee for a local disability organisation staffed mainly by volunteers.
Chris Millora is Research Associate with the UNESCO Chair in Adult Literacy and Learning for Social Transformation for the UKRI/GCRF-funded project on Family Literacy, Indigenous Learning and Sustainable Development. He is also Lead Researcher for the commissioned UNV State of the World's Volunteerism Report 2022 coordinating case study research in South and Central Asia, East and West Africa, the Middle East and Latin America and the Carribbean. He recently finished his PhD in education and development exploring the learning and literacy dimension of local volunteering in the Philippines - funded by the UEA UNESCO Chair studentship and is Chair of the British Association for Literacy in Development (BALID).
Michael Ashe is Chief Executive Officer at Volunteer Centre Kensington & Chelsea. His professional roles have included delivering legal advice, making grants, advising on funding policy, developing funding programmes for children and young people, facilitating learning and effectiveness in International Development organisations and their donors, leading the UKs largest Law Centre, and providing consultancy to a range of not-for-profit organisations.
Peter Beresford, OBE is Visiting Professor at the University of East Anglia, Co-Chair of Shaping our Lives, and Emeritus Professor at Brunel University London and Essex University. He has a longstanding interest in user and public participa- tion as activist, service user, researcher, educator, and through involvement in policy development. His latest book is Inclusive Ideology, Policy Press 2021.