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Would you like to work with children and young people? BeFriends is recruiting adult volunteers for our one-to-one befriending and group activities. A registered charity established in 1981, BeFriends works with 5 to 25-year-olds who live in Dundee and are often socially isolated, vulnerable, and experiencing difficulties in their lives. Our one-to-one BeFrienders support a young person with whom they have been matched. During regular meetings, the befriender offers the opportunity for their young person to chat and have fun, while building confidence and self-esteem as they take part in community activities together. If you have some spare time to give to others, and you would like a new challenge or you may be looking to change career, then why not become a Volunteer Befriender with BeFriends? You do not need to have experience of supporting children and young people, but it is important to have empathy, the ability to engage and a non-judgemental approach to understanding the issues affecting young lives. BeFriends provides volunteers with full training, induction, and on-going support.

Volunteers receive a "feel good factor" and a sense of satisfaction helping others, opportunity to give something back to the community, to gain experience which may be useful if later seeking a career in caring. The service user gains contact with the outside community, befriender visits and spends quality time with user providing stimulation and conversation. The befriender may take the user out, where this might not otherwise be possible.

Although our Active Women session is open to all women a high percentage of our customers are from the BME community. These sessions are intended to provide a comfortable environment for those who would feel uneasy being in the pool supervised by staff members of the opposite sex. We are therefore looking for female volunteers with translator interpreter skills to meet and greet our customers, show them to the changing rooms and poolside. You should be aware that the session is held in a Leisure Centre resulting in variable temperatures.

As part of the Aquatics team your role will be teaching swimming within a session for women with modesty issues, many of whom are members of the BME community. The customers will have a variety of needs from non-swimmers to improving stroke technique or learning a new stroke. The swim teacher will work with individuals within the session, working to the individual needs of the customer. A positive experience in a comfortable setting can improve the health and wellbeing of customers as well as building their confidence as they learn a new skill. Translator/interpreter skills would be advantageous.

Home-Start Dundee provides support to families who have at least one child of pre-school age. The support is provided by the home-visiting befriender who will receive training and then be matched with a suitable family. They will usually visit for 1-3 hours per week. The befriender may provide emotional support to a parent adapting to change or provide practical assistance to a family who may be struggling with day-to-day issues affecting them. The befriender may just need to be a good listener or be able to sign-post the family to other support that is available to them. The befriender will be able to help families cope with the pressures they face and can make a real difference to a family as they move forward in life.

The aim of our Community Kitchen project is to transform usable, surplus food into freshly prepared meals for distribution to Foodbanks and larders across Dundee. The Kitchen has been launched to close the loop between food waste and food poverty by supporting organisations tackling food insecurity, while reducing the amount of food going to waste. As a volunteer, there are various ways you can contribute to the day-to-day running of our project. Roles you can help with include: Surplus Food Collector We are building a network of local food businesses that are keen to pass their surplus food stock to us. This helps them reduce their food waste and adds to our supply of ingredients. As this network grows, we’ll need people to help collect this food from across the city. Days and times are flexible but largely depend on the food businesses’ schedules. You would be out and about between supermarkets, small shops and our Whitfield-based kitchen. You will probably enjoy chatting with the staff you receive food from, will be happy moving crates of food around (these could be heavy) and will be integral to building relationships between our project and local businesses. You will need access to your own vehicle to carry out this role. Stock Systems Administrator To measure the impact of what we are doing, we record the food that comes to us, what we use for cooking meals and what we ourselves pass on or discard. We also keep a record of the ingredients and meals in our stores, to help us plan what we cook and what we give to the larders and Foodbank we supply. This is a mainly desk-based role, inputting information to our Excel spreadsheets, although you may want to look around the stores to check some details. Much of this could be done from home. Our systems are new, and you would be welcome to suggest improvements. Kitchen Prep & Cooking Team There are roles for people with kitchen experience, which include preparing and cooking various meals in large batches to be portioned for sending out. Kitchen work is quite physically-demanding and you would be working with sharp equipment and heat. You could come in early for food prep (mainly peeling & chopping vegetables and then cooking over heat in large pots), or later in the day to portion out the chilled food, clear any unwashed dishes in our commercial dishwasher and clean down the kitchen. Veg prep for the following day is also possible in the afternoons. We currently cook to ideas rather than recipes, responding to our ever-changing ingredients supply! You will enjoy being a little creative in the kitchen and thinking on your feet. A Level 2 Food Hygiene certificate is required for these roles. We use the HACCP system of food safety management. If you are keen to volunteer in one of these roles but don’t have a certificate, let us know and we can arrange for you to do the study online. Cleaning Heroes Our food stores (fridges, freezers and pantry) need regular cleaning and tidying. You could come in for a couple of hours and focus on one or two areas at a time, or blast through them all in a longer day. There are also cleaning tasks in the kitchen that need carried out every so often, for example weekly or fortnightly, in addition to the daily cleaning that the kitchen team do as they work. These are things like wiping down the walls and cleaning the hob. Ideally, these tasks would be done on Fridays when the kitchen is not so busy. Recipe Developer This is a role that you could carry out alongside other tasks, and may only be required for a short time. You would look at the typical ingredients we receive and come up with tasty meal ideas for them. You might take some ingredients home to try out your recipes before putting them into electronic documents we can use in the kitchen. You would need to consider how the food can be cooked in bulk (upto 50 portions) using the equipment we have, the types of ingredients we use (no raw meat, fish or eggs) and how the meals will be packaged and reheated by those who receive them. You could even learn how to create food safety compliant labels for the final packaged meals. Gardening Team We would love to create and maintain a kitchen garden outside our building, growing herbs and fresh produce which can be used in the food we produce. In time, we’d like the garden to offer educational opportunities, inviting people to pick and taste, showing them what they can grow at home with limited or upcycled resources and how they can use what they grow in their own kitchens.Some knowledge of growing and garden design would be ideal, but if you are keen to learn and get stuck in then that’s great too. We have limited gardening knowledge but plenty of enthusiasm and links to experts. Contact Caroline on 01382 504033 or at caroline@signpost-international.org.

Main role is to steward on New Year Day either on road closure points or assisting swimmers out of the water. There is normally a crowd of six to seven thousand People watching the event and three hundred swimmers in the water. Road closure is to ensure that no vehicles come past the road closure points except ambulance or Fire Brigade , you will be give training prior to the day on aspects of health and safety. Assisting swimmers out of the cold water you will be positioned on land at the top of a wall ladder and your role is to oversee the swimmer safely to the top verbally engaging with them to ensure they are okay. There is a briefing on the 31st December at 1pm at the Clubhouse to ensure that everyone knows their specific role and again on the day of the event. You will be given a high viz vest and you will wear a lifejacket if your duties are at the top of the ladder.

Dundee Carers Centre is committed to providing information, advice and support locally – and in order to make sure we are reaching the right people in the right places we need your help. The role is varied, interesting and rewarding – and is flexible to suit your life and time commitments. If you know your community well and you think you could help us make sure we reach all the carers in your area, then get in touch. The following are examples of the types of opportunities you could get involved in: Identifying local groups and venues in the area, distributing and maintaining publicity in local businesses and organisations, representing the organisation at community events, assisting with information sessions, drop ins and groups in your local area and much much more You can take on as much or as little as you would like. Preference is given to current or former carers – but more important is that you are enthusiastic and committed to be part of a dynamic team raising the profile of carers in your community,

As an IT Support volunteer you will provide a timely, effective, free and impartial advice and assistance on a one-off or short-term basis, to disabled or older people to resolve their computer related issues in their home and/or remotely.

The Sports Development Team has priority sports to develop across the city. These priority sports are currently athletics, football, gymnastics, netball, tennis and trampolining. The team deliver term-time classes across the city in Leisure & Culture Dundee facilities (DISC, Douglas Sports Centre, Grove Swim & Sport, Harris Swim & Sport, Lynch Sports Centre, St Paul’s Swim & Sport) as well as at community centres and schools. There are also holiday programmes and events throughout the year. Volunteers can participate in programmes as assistant coaches, working alongside qualified coaches and receiving support from sports development officers. By providing volunteering opportunities within these programmes, the Sports Development Team aim to provide experience, development opportunities and increase employability.