Kingston students support communities across London during Student Volunteering Week

‘It was an incredible experience creating the project LinkAges and seeing it come together during Student Volunteering Week has made me feel really good, like finally giving back to the community.’ - Unsal Kaynak, 2nd Year Psychology Student.

As part of Student Volunteering Week 2017, a nationwide campaign than ran from 20-26 February, students from Kingston University, like Unsal, led a huge variety of events to support the local community. Organised by student volunteers and staff of Kingston Hub with the support of the Union of Kingston Students, the week’s activities aimed to celebrate student volunteers and projects, get more students involved in, and have an impact on, communities across London.

Student Volunteering Week highlighted how student social action helps to tackle key social issues, such as educational disadvantage and elderly isolation in London, as well as the invaluable benefits it provides students, from a sense of belonging and community to increased employability.

The week featured activities such as, taster sessions of Schools Plus Kingston Hub’s flagship volunteering programme, donation sorting with the Hackney Destitution centre that supports refugees and gardening in Lewisham Community Garden. With current pressures on local services and fears around stagnating social mobility, volunteers have a significant role to play in supporting community members in need and dozens of Kingston students proved this throughout the week.

The week also saw the launch of a new project called LinkAges set up by a 2nd Year Kingston University Psychology student, Unsal Kaynak. LinkAges aims to tackle elderly isolation by providing Kingston students with the opportunity to run activities for and befriend elderly people facing isolation across London. The launch saw Kingston students hosting a tea party in Putney attended by 20 elderly residents, serving cakes donated by Hummingbird Bakery that otherwise would have gone to waste.


‘It was an incredible experience creating the project LinkAges and seeing it come together during Student Volunteering Week has made me feel really good, like finally giving back to the community. Having volunteers take part in your project is probably one of the most satisfying things in the world, to know that you have a shared passion of helping the elderly. Also the reaction of the elderly residents who attended on the day was priceless, knowing that young people still care and having the opportunity to interact with the volunteers had a big impact on them.’ Said Unsal Kaynak on launching LinkAges

Finally, SVW highlighted a very unique programme that Kingston Hub are piloting called DRIVE that has community projects for Kingston University students to volunteer and get involved in across London, in particular supporting the many students who commute to Kingston University from outside the Borough by providing them with the opportunities to volunteer, develop skills and have an impact in their own neighbourhoods.

Article supplied by Fatima Iftikhar