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Kevin Brennan, Minister for the Third Sector, visited The Ahoy Centre in South East London to celebrate local volunteers as part of Community Channel’s Helping others can help you campaign.
The Minister was interviewed by Community Channel for its Your Sport series – the only national TV show dedicated to grassroots sport, and talked about the importance of volunteering to strengthen bonds across communities.
During the interview, Brennan commented that ‘There’s not enough about the real story of sport, which is mass participation, mass volunteering, you know by millions of people, giving up their time, for nothing other than they wanting to help’. ‘And that’s a real positive story, doesn’t always get reported, but it should do’.
He added that Community Channel ‘is a very good example of how you can do it’ and reflected that volunteering is ‘the lifeblood’ of community sport.
He also talked about the opportunities and skills offered by The Ahoy Centre, commenting that ‘sailing, traditionally is not the sort of sport that you would expect people from less well off background or those with a disability to have access to.
Brennan praised AHOY’s fantastic facilities and its network of excellent volunteers for bringing all part of the community together around this activity and offering people the opportunity ‘to transform their lives’.
The AHOY Centre is a charity, which has established a sailing and boating centre in Deptford, Greenwich. The centre caters for all of the community – young, disabled and retired alike. Key projects work with children who are out of school through truancy, using water-based activities as an incentive to re-engage with education. Participants have the opportunity to not only learn how to sail, race and row, but also gain skills in building and maintaining boats.
Notes to editors:
The Minister’s visit to The Ahoy Centre, was organised as part of Community Channel’s Helping others can help you campaign which pays tribute to the community champions and volunteers across the UK and encourages more people to commit their time and sign up to volunteer. Launched in December to coincide with the United Nations International Volunteer Day on Friday 5th December 2008, the campaign runs throughout January 2009.
Anyone interested in finding out more about volunteering can go to www.communitychannel.org/you or call 0800 0681 800
About Community Channel:
Community Channel is dedicated to engaging audiences with the charitable and voluntary sector, showcasing stories and issues that inspire action and encourage involvement. Broadcasting original shows, the best of terrestrial TV and showcasing the work of new directors and community programme makers, Community Channel is the place for real-life stories from communities around the world. The channel is broadcast 24 hours a day on Sky 539, Virgin TV 233 and from 6am to 9am on Freeview 87. Around 1.5 million people tune in every month and we receive more than 12,000 interactions with viewers a week. Community Channel is a Media Trust initiative – www.mediatrust.org
Background to the Volunteering for All Programme
Helping others can help you is funded by the Office of the Third Sector through the government’s ‘Volunteering for All’ strategy. Volunteering for All is a government programme worth £3 million. It is funded by the Office of the Third Sector in the Cabinet Office which leads work across government to support the environment for a thriving third sector (voluntary and community groups, social enterprises, charities, cooperatives and mutuals) and managed by the Media Trust.
The programme was launched in September 2006 and aims to:
• identify and tackle barriers to volunteering
• fund high quality ‘exemplar’ volunteering opportunities
• fund work to raise positive awareness of voluntary activity
The Government is committed to ensuring that people have an equal opportunity to take part in voluntary activity. This programme therefore specifically targets those who volunteer less than others such as people with disabilities or limiting long term illness, people with no formal qualifications and people from black and minority ethnic communities, with a specific focus on Asian and Chinese communities.
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