📝 Detailed information
🏢 About the local organisation
YMCA Fairthorne Group is a fast growing charity. Their mission is to champion and add value to young lives by providing experiences that challenge, enable and develop the individual. Fairthorne Manor, part of the Fairthorne Group, delivers outdoor education and environmental programmes to over 20,000 children and young people each year on both a residential and day basis.
The Young Carers Festival (YCF) is an exclusive event for young people who have a caring responsibility at home. Run in partnership with The Children’s Society, YCF was created in 2000 to give young carers the chance to have fun away from their caring role, raise awareness of this often hidden group of young people and allow young carers to share experiences with others in a similar situation. 2016 was the 17th annual festival with over 1,600 young people from across the UK attending.
💼 What the programme involves
The work involves helping with the preparation of the festival, including changing an area of the grounds into a huge campsite with accommodation for the young people in around 600 tents (many are pop-up tents). You’ll also be organising workshop areas, marking out activity areas, preparing the grounds (cutting back trees, litter picking etc.), as well as helping the organisers with paperwork, i.e. stapling the information packs and putting all paperwork in and labelling bags. There may be some lifting and carrying as the food for the weekend will arrive and need to be stored. Volunteers will also be involved in some food preparation to make sure that young people have packed lunches.
Then during the festival weekend itself, you will be needed to help keep the dining room flowing and clean, assist with children’s’ harnesses and helmets on activities, take drinks and food round to the staff, as well as directing car parking and general marshalling of the event.
The YMCA hold a fireworks display, have a disco, fairground rides as well as our own activities, and the young people get a chance to just be themselves, without having to explain what they do, they can just be children again for the weekend.
🏠 Accommodation on site
Volunteers will be camping in yurts and sleeping on camp beds. There is some bedding provided but please bring a sleeping bag for extra warmth. Three meals a day will be will be provided in the canteen and there are toilet and shower facilities and a washing machine.
📍 About the location
Fairthorne Manor is located in a village called Curdridge which is near the city of Southampton on the South Coast of England. It is about 15 minutes’ walk from Fairthorne Manor into the village where there are shops and pubs. The nearest train station is Botley which is about half an hour’s journey into Southampton.
⚠️ Requirements
• Volunteers will need to provide a CV, certificate of good conduct /police check from home country, motivational letter, and provide two references, including one from their most recent school/ college or employer.
ACCESSABILITY: Volunteers need to be able to be physically active, and able to walk on uneven ground.