Chief Executive, Volunteer Glasgow
Community Justice Glasgow partners have a long history of enabling pathways for people to volunteer across a range of opportunities, giving people a chance to make positive contributions to communities, proving their worth to themselves and others, enhancing mental and physical health, skills, employability and reintegration.
Volunteer Glasgow is the city’s TSI (Third Sector Interface) partner – and an independent charity in its own right – with the task of making it easier for everyone in the city to volunteer but with a particular focus on inclusion and diversity. TSI Volunteer Centre services are provided in each local authority area in Scotland and are part-funded by Scottish Government to help deliver the national Volunteering for All Framework.
Eliza Gearty, one of Volunteer Glasgow’s small team of Advisers, commented:
“We’ve worked with a range of Community Justice partners over the last couple of years to do a few things to break down common misperceptions and promote volunteering opportunities more effectively. People think that a criminal record will completely bar them from any volunteering, but that’s nonsense. And more often than not, people are really surprised at the range of amazing things that they can do!”
In 2023/24, Parkhead Citizens Advice Bureau, the Creative Change Collective, and Volunteer Glasgow were supported and funded by Community Justice Glasgow to join forces and work on a creative project about volunteering with members of HMP Barlinnie’s radio group, “Barbed Wireless”. The group developed their idea for a radio script called ‘Kev and Jack’s Big Day Out’ which tells the story of two cell-mates who are released from prison and faced with the decision of whether or not to volunteer. The group were supported to write, record, perform and produce the 15-minute audio infomercial, which will be broadcast by SPS in prisons across Scotland.
Eliza added that:
“The aim of ‘Kev and Jack’s Big Day Out’ was to get the message across that volunteering is a viable, positive option for prison-leavers. We wanted to do that in a way that was fun, engaging, and creative, by telling a story, rather than just putting out an infomercial. The Barbed Wireless Group are fantastic and the script they wrote is funny and entertaining as well as informative. Chris Dolan from the Creative Change Collective was a brilliant facilitator and Victoria Byrne from Parkhead CAB managed the entire project wonderfully. We know that ‘Kev and Jack’s Big Day Out’ will help prisoners preparing for release to understand the volunteering process more and see that it is not something that necessarily excludes them.” Victoria’s work in Barlinnie is supported by the National Lottery Community Fund.
