Help From School
The 'Help From School' project enables teachers to educate students about volunteering by actively engaging them in microvolunteering actions.
About You
About You
First Name
Mike
Last Name
Bright
Twitter URL
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Help From Home
Organization Website
Organization Country
United Kingdom, XX, Cardiff
Country where this project is creating social impact
United Kingdom
Is your organization a
Non‐profit / NGO / Citizen sector organization
Your role in Education
Other.
The type of school(s) your solution is affiliated with
Public (tuition-free)
How long has your organization been operating?
1‐5 years
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Innovation
Select the stage that best applies to your solution
Start-Up (a pilot that has just begun operating)
How long has your solution been in operation?
Operating for less than a year
The Need: What problem are you trying to solve?
Volunteering is an effective way to develop students’ empathy and enhance their sense of sense of responsibility. Acting in the benefit of others contributes to students’ moral development. Nowadays, volunteering is already part of many global citizenship classes. Nevertheless, it is not always easy or practical to find volunteering opportunities to put into practice what has been taught in class, especially for a one-off group event. Teachers’ busy schedule often prevents them for getting involved in mid to long term volunteering activities which require a great amount of time and effort. Coupled with the logistics of transporting students to the place where the volunteering opportunity occurs can deter educators even attempting to find an opportunity in the first place.
The Solution: What is your solution? Be specific!
Our solution is to bring volunteering actions into the classroom and make them small enough time wise so that a student can participate in several different actions within the length of a typical class lesson. Allow us to introduce the concept of microvolunteering where actions can be completed in a time span of between 1-30 minutes, either online or offline. Microvolunteering covers a huge range of causes and from so many different countries.
Practical involvement in actual microvolunteering actions within the classroom can demonstrate a hands on approach to the reward and benefit of volunteering – something which traditional volunteering can achieve, but for practical reasons could not be brought into the classroom in the space of class lesson. Microvolunteering enables students to actually put into practice what they have been taught about volunteering and has the potential for the pupil to develop a greater empathy with the aims and missions of worthy causes.
The Model: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference; include your primary activities
We provide a freely downloadable multimedia Microvolunteering Teacher’s Resource Pack on our website. The Resource Pack contains Lesson Guides and an accompanying video that introduce the broad genre of volunteering, followed by a most focused look at microvolunteering. It employs the use of callout sessions, small group discussions and guidance notes to convey information about the microvolunteering concept. This is then followed by a session of a hands on practical involvement in actual microvolunteering activities using Activity Cards. Students will be benefiting worthy causes in real time within the confines of a classroom. It must be stated that access to the internet is a prerequisite to participate in these actions.
The Teacher’s Resource Pack uses the UK National Curriculum to convey its compliance with a nationally recognised syllabus. However, microvolunteering is international in scope and could equally be integrated within other countries' equivalent National Curriculum.
The Marketplace: Who are your peers and competitors? Identify others also working to address the needs you are and what differentiates you from them. What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
The microvolunteering arena is still an evolving market and, and as far as we know there are only 5 initiatives in the world actively marketing the concept. 4 of these organisations are focussed on engaging volunteers with professional skills to benefit worthy causes. Students on the whole don’t have the requisite professional skills to benefit their business model. Plus, 3 of these initiatives are for-profit companies and it would seem extremely difficult to see how these organisations could make money out of educational establishments.
The ‘Help From School’ project is the only microvolunteering initiative in the world where the volunteer does not need any prior skills to participate. There are therefore currently no challengers that the other players in the market pose.
Now that you have thought out your entry, help us pitch it.
Define your company, program, service, or product in 1-2 short sentences [136 characters]
Help From School is an education program aimed at enhancing students’ empathy through practical time-saving microvolunteering actions
Identify what is innovative about your solution in 1-2 short sentences [136 characters]
Help From School is the only programme that allows students to volunteer on demand, within class lessons.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What has been the impact of your solution to date?
Whilst it is early days for the project, we have been encouraged by the interest shown from various educational establishment around the world, for example (1) Istanbul Sehir University, who wanted to use our project as part of an effort to support education in primary schools in Istanbul (2) Edison Elementary, in Florida, US who promotes some of the action featured on Help From School as part their science lessons (3) Voluntary Action South West Surrey, who used the Help From School project to introduce students to microvolunteering as part of UK Nationwide 'Make A Difference' day initiative in October 2011.
What is your projected impact over the next 1-3 years?
Our goal is to make as many educational establishments as possible be aware of how microvolunteering can be used as an on demand valuable resource to convey empathy for the multitude of worthy causes around the world. This cannot be done with traditional volunteering in a classroom setting. We have already started contacting educational establishment in the UK that will then be expanded to other English speaking countries in the following year.
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve and track growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
To have contacted at least 2,000 educational establishments in the UK with substantial plans for cooperation
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your six-month milestone
Task 1
Locate funding to pay for professional printing of both promotion and resource educational materials.
Task 2
Commit time for recruiting long-term, dedicated and skilled volunteers and/or employees.
Task 3
Develop and improve our microvolunteering resource materials following feedback from educational establishments.
Now think bigger! Identify your 12-month impact milestone
To have contacted at least 4,000 educational establishments and established collaboration with at least 1000 schools.
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your 12-month milestone
Task 1
Locate funding so that our Action Tracker can be enhanced to enable schools to login with their own profile
Task 2
Improve familiarity of the microvolunteering concept with educators so that they will more readily accept it
Task 3
Create more multimedia ways in combination with e-learning experts, graphic designers and video makers.
Founding Story: We want to hear about your "Aha!" moment. Share the story of where and when the founder(s) saw this solution's potential to change the world [125 words]
My ‘Aha’ moment was built up steadily over time as I began to expand beyond the confines of people volunteering from their own homes. It slowly dawned on me that because microvolunteering could be done in under 30 minutes, and on demand from anywhere, it would fit in very neatly within the structure of a class lesson as a method to convey empathy for worthy causes.
Sustainability
Tell us about your partnerships
The following institutions/organizations have expressed their interest and support for our project
(1) Istanbul Sehir University, who wanted to use our project as part of an effort to support education in primary schools in Istanbul
(2) Edison Elementary, in Florida, US who promotes some of the action featured on Help From School as part their science lessons
(3) Voluntary Action South West Surrey, who used the Help From School project to introduce students to microvolunteering as part of UK Nationwide 'Make A Difference' day initiative in October 2011.
What type of team (staff, volunteers, etc.) will ensure that you achieve the growth milestones identified in the Social Impact section? [75 words]
Our team is relatively small. We use both traditional and virtual volunteers.We plan to expend it soon by recruiting new volunteers. As the Founder of Help From Home I hope to soon welcome new people in our team.
Please elaborate on any needs or offers you have mentioned above and/or suggest categories of support that aren't specified within the list
We are primarily in need of recognition of the microvolunteering concept within the education arena, as well as feedback and input on how to expand our reach.
 | 9 weeks agoRichard Majors said: I like the concept of Micro-volunteering, it's a very innovative idea, but after reading your proposal over a few times the concept ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 13 weeks agoMike Bright updated this Competition Entry. |
| 15 weeks agoMike Bright updated this Competition Entry. |
| 15 weeks agoMike Bright submitted this idea. |
