Envolve

Funding: £38,292

Date of funding approved: March 2005

Date of project completion: March 2007

Project summary

Time Bank Plus is a new project aiming to promote and enhance confidence and skill development, which for some will mean better employment prospects, It will create a  more cohesive, healthy, confident and therefore sustainable community. It will link local projects and organisations with supported volunteering opportunities, a work skills training programme and will be specifically linked to local healthy lifestyle projects in a local woodland. 

They aim to do the following:
(a) develop skills, encourage skills exchange, increase confidence and self-esteem, communication, team building, Life Skills and Basic Skills and which may lead to greater access to employment;
(b) promote healthy lifestyles;
(c) promote intergenerational linking and address conflict and barriers between age groups

A Time Bank is a scheme which recognises, values, supports and coordinates volunteering opportunities – both formal and informal, and between both individuals and organisations. 

• Firstly every person’s hour is valued in the same way. This means that your time is valued in the same way, regardless of the type of volunteering you do and the skills employed. It is the time spent which is valued.
• Secondly, a Time Bank volunteer’s account does not need to ‘balance’. People can certainly call on others for help in return for hours that they have themselves volunteered and, in addition, a Time Bank draws in freebies and discounts from local service providers and businesses, to help provide recognition or ‘value’ for volunteering.
• Thirdly, Time Banks, particularly those which are supported by Community Development input and staffing, have been proven to be highly successful in encouraging people who would otherwise not get involved, into volunteering, and therefore into social situations, confidence building situations and into training and skill development.

Timebanks UK Link

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