Duke of Edinburgh Award - looking for suggestions for on line volunteering

[2020again]

My children are about to start the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award. Of course currently the volunteering part is a real issue with most volunteering being on line rather than real life. However they have both found it difficult to find anything remotely relevant or something they can see some value to. I have also looked in some detail at the suggestions they were given and I agree that what was suggested was a bit odd - things like transposing pretty illegible army burial records from World War 2, commenting on noises being played back to you as to what you were hearing.

Has anyone got any suggestions that their children or students may have done which might be something both doable and more engaging. The school is very much suggesting things like chores for neighbours or the eldery etc are not done at this time and that on line volunteering is the way to go.

Sorry just wanted to add they have both tried local animal rescues and charity shops (of course all closed for months) and even the hedgehog rescue but due to being under 16 and the covid situation no one is interested so I think it has to be on line.

Perhaps something like 'Be My Eyes', an app that connects visually-impaired users with sighted users to do things like read labels for them etc. I haven't used it but remember thinking it sounded like a great idea when I read about it. However some reviews from volunteers said that they didn't get very many calls as there were more volunteers than users at the time - no idea if that's changed now, though - so it might be hard to get the requisite number of hours. You can just choose when you want to be available for it.

www.bemyeyes.com/

Or perhaps one of those conversation programmes where people studying languages have conversations with elderly people - I know there was an article recently about matching up French students from here with elderly isolated French 'grandparents' and having conversations each week. Even if they're not studying French, they might be able to do something similar with an English care home etc.

The YHA social media campaign they suggest might be a goer? Agree it’s really hard and personally the last thing i want for mine is more solitary online stuff!

I can't remember the name but there's a scheme that facilitates you listening to primary schoolchildren reading. Im sure a local school could do something similar over zoom.

Contact your local Guiding or Scouting groups. They could volunteer with online Rainbows / Brownies or Beavers / Cubs, perhaps?

My son collected bottles from all of the neighbours twice a week and took them to the bottle bank.
Someone else in his year did collections to help the local food bank.
Both easily doable..

What Tier are you in? I manage a charity shop and we are still open with DoE volunteers.

Local area little picking?

Someone my mum knows has her son doing weeding & tidying the boys of communal village land (Which my mum usually weeds).

I don't know if you have any religious affiliations, but many places pf worhip are offering online services. Could they get in touch and be involved in those - with readings, music etc?

www.dofe.org/opportunity-finder/article/british-red-cross-missing-maps-volunteering-opportunity/

Looked at this but DD was able to do some RL volunteering instead. Might be worth asking the school if a geography teacher or the D of E coordinator would be willing to assess?

I think he should go with one of the things you are currently writing off as odd. Things like archive work and nature surveys are important, and part of the reason for DofEd is to get you doing things you might not otherwise have come across.

Could they do something via the school like litter picking or volunteering to mentor (virtually) a younger child you might be struggling. Volunteering in the school library. Spending time setting up virtual social activities for small groups of students who are struggling

Have a look on the Do It website - there are loads of good voluntary positions which would also offer excellent experience
do-it.org/opportunities/search

Mapathon?

Quick update - school don't want the students knocking on neighbours doors or even really collecting from them without adults - complete no no. Very very strong message that at this time all volunteering should be on line.

Bemyeyes.com - agree great idea but no one using it (several students been registered for months) has been asked to help so I agree that it is very odd .

Charity shops - we are Tier 4 now but even when we were not and after the first lockdown no charity shops round here (there were 10 now only 2 have survived and these are not currently open) were not taking any non adult volunteeers due to covid - this has been the same with all animal rescues and similar - they tried them all.

The search continues....

Guiding / scouting take on teenagers doing DoE and have online meets going on
😀

The things with volunteering at Scouts / Guides is that 14 yr olds vary hugely.
When groups are meeting F2F, then Leaders can manage, and work with them to help them become useful Young Leaders. This is far more difficult on-line.
Lots of YLs have been incredibly useful and helpful and supportive throughout the months since March, but, unless your dc are already in Scouts / Guides, I doubt if many Leaders will want to take them on at this time, when they can't meet. Just letting another young teen that they don't know into a meeting isn't always helpful t a time when many Leaders are really struggling with this new form of volunteering that no-one signed up to.
Sorry to be pessimistic.

Try contacting Change or 38Degrees and see if they can help publicise any online petitions by posting them on social media. Many are for very worthy causes.

Many residential homes for elderly have launched pen pal programs where you can write to lonely elderly to help them get through all this isolation from shielding and such.
www.bhg.com/news/pen-pals/

Check with local school and volunteer as online tutor for younger school children by online video chat.

I have also looked in some detail at the suggestions they were given and I agree that what was suggested was a bit odd - things like transposing pretty illegible army burial records from World War 2

Do you mean transcribing? Nothing odd about putting records into a format where they can be accessible and useful to other people.

However they have both found it difficult to find anything remotely relevant or something they can see some value to.

May I suggest that it's not supposed to be about them? Isn't the whole point of volunteering to do something that's useful to other people? It's not for a fourteen year old to decide that something has no value; other people, who know more about it than they do, evidently think it has. They need to get stuck in and (metaphorically) get their hands dirty.

I don't have any names, but are there any charities where they could speak to lonely people? Maybe something like help the aged. Not an easy thing to do, but would be really character building and rewarding to the right person.

NGOs, greenpeace etc might have online groups. If DCs have any strong views or interest in sports then search out local groups. (eg my sister is active in a vegan/anti hunt group. It needent be so extreme. My parents are involved in local crown green bowling club)
The groups would probably be happy to help and DCs could help them by designing websites, social media management, creating logos, creating spreadsheets etc. (I know the bowls group are not IT savvy).

Things the students at my school are doing:

Litter picking
Girlguiding/scouting (worth a go - I took on a new DofE volunteer in summer and she helps run games on Zoom meetings. Does it really well and it helps break up the meeting and gets another voice on the meeting)
Making toys for anima rescue centre and selling some to raise funds
Missing maps
Supporting younger neighbours or relative eg reading stories over zoom if they can’t meet face to face
Fundraising for a charity
Helping neighbours who are shielding
Food bank collections
Newsletter for care home
Community gardens
Looking after local green spaces

Online tutoring/homework help for younger children?
Telephone befriending?
Helping small local charity with using Snapchat or Instagram to promote its work?
Online English conversation sessions for newly arrived refugee children?
If your teens are musical, have a look at what organisations like Give a Song are doing to help combat loneliness?

How about dog walking through the cinnamon Trust?