Student Volunteering Week starts today!

Now in its tenth year, Volunteering England's Student Volunteering Week, sponsored by Santander, brings organisations from all sectors together to celebrate volunteering by students in Further and Higher Education.

Student Volunteering Week 2011 provides a platform for student volunteers to connect with their community and actively engage at a local level. In addition, 2011 marks the European Year of Volunteering, the tenth anniversary of the International Year of Volunteers (IYV+10) and the penultimate year before the 2012 Games, in which volunteers will play a vital role. Student Volunteering Week and these other initiatives provide an ideal opportunity to highlight the wider work that student volunteers do to inspire futures and connect communities.

Student Volunteering Week celebrates the value of the volunteering work carried out by further and higher education students across the country. Almost one in two students took part in formal volunteering last year, giving just over three million hours to their communities and contributing an estimated £42 million to the economy.

Many of these students are giving their time to support grassroots sport, and will help to deliver a mass participation legacy from the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. Sport England's latest Active People Survey results show that 9.1% of university students and 11.6% of students in Further Education are doing voluntary sports work at least once a month. That compares to 7.7% for 16- to 29-year-olds who aren't students.

Developed by BinaryFold4