A huge thank you to our amazing volunteers at RMC:
By Craig Hands, Volunteers Manager at Refugee and Migrant Centre (Black Country and Birmingham) (RMC)
RMC was founded by volunteers almost two decades ago and to this day continues to run on the power of people dedicating their time to help others.
Volunteers are the backbone of our organisation, without which we would not be able to offer our breadth of services. They are people we need, value and trust.
“Last year, 175 volunteers contributed over 20,000 hours to our charity. That’s almost two and a half years given freely. Just let that sink in. It’s an astounding figure, the impact of which should not be underestimated.”
On an average day, we have 80 to 100 volunteers based at our three offices across the West Midlands. From retired school teachers, to University students, doctors, bricklayers and pastors, we’re fortunate to draw on the expertise and experience from the broad range of communities we work within. They enable us to continually offer our wide range of services, be this running English classes, offering employment advice, preparing our clients for citizenship tests and much more. For this we are incredibly grateful.
It is also vitally important to RMC that we reciprocate these acts of kindness and to this end, we continually seek to invest in the communities that offer us so much. This means ensuring that we are giving our volunteers the best possible environment to develop and achieve their future goals. We’re proud that during the past year, almost 40 per cent of those volunteering at RMC left our charity due to securing further education or employment opportunities. This includes 14 members of staff now working here.
Recently, we have also finished the process of becoming accredited with Investing in Volunteers. It’s a nationally recognised award, given only to organisations that can evidence a sustained good practice in volunteer management.
“On a personal note, it is a genuine pleasure to work with such a varied and creative group of people. Each volunteer has an incredible story and experience to offer RMC, and whose ideas continually help to improve the services we offer. We are all so proud of all our volunteers for the tireless commitment they offer and wish to thank each and everyone one of them for their continued support, expertise and passion.”
Volunteers’ Week (1st – 7th June) is a nationwide opportunity to say thank you for the fantastic contribution volunteers make. Throughout this week, the Refugee and Migrant Centre (Black Country and Birmingham) (RMC), will be bringing our supporters a story each day, highlighting the diverse and invaluable contributions these people make. To find out more about how we’re celebrating, follow our Twitter or Facebook.
