OK so this is at the other end of the country, in Cornwall – but if you’re looking for exciting volunteering opportunities, Oxfam Grow has teamed up with the Eden Project in Cornwall to run a three year food justice campaign, Growing a Better Future.
Grow volunteer at Bristol Festival of Nature
They’re looking for friendly, approachable volunteers to help them run Growing a Better Future at the Eden Project, over Easter 2013.
Global gardeners - Eden Project - photo credit:Eden Project
Why do we need to grow a better future?
“We know that it’s possible to feed everyone on the planet, but many go hungry because the food system is broken. We are campaigning to ensure that, in a world where there’s enough food to go around, no-one has to go to bed hungry.” Oxfam Grow
What will Growing a Better Future volunteers do?
Key volunteer responsibilities:
- Staffing an interactive area at the Eden Project in Cornwall, which will include
- Chatting to people about food
- Encouraging people to find out more about the Grow campaign
- Giving away seeds for them to grow at home
- Setting up and packing away the Grow activity each day
- Making sure Grow activity resources (seeds & leaflets) are stocked up
- Keeping the activity area neat & tidy
What this volunteering role offers
- A chance to engage people with one of the most important global issues there is.
- Be involved in a fun, new collaboration between two exciting and inspirational organisations.
- Enjoy the jaw-dropping setting of Eden’s Biomes with a rainforest on your doorstep and the crops that feed the world at your fingertips.
- Access to benefits exclusive to Eden staff and volunteers such as subsidised meals and retail discounts.
- Based in the sunniest county in the UK*
- Training and experience in engaging and inspiring people to be part of a positive change.
*OK, so that’s not true, but whatever the weather Cornwall’s still fantastic!
Skills and qualities volunteers need
Ideally, you’ll be:
- Passionate that positive change is possible
- Happy working indoors or out (rain or shine!)
- Friendly and happy working in a team
- Reliable and trustworthy
- Able to talk with people you don’t know about global food issues, without piling on the guilt
- Personally committed to helping make this Oxfam/Eden activity a success
Experience of campaigning and knowledge of issues relating to Oxfam’s campaign are desirable, but full training will be provided. The most important thing is a willingness to learn.
The Grow campaign – Mending the broken food system
The world currently produces enough food for everyone, but nearly 1 billion people don’t have enough to eat. It’s not just drought, or famine, or a bad harvest. A whole host of interlinked factors are involved.
Oxfam’s Grow campaign explores the reasons the food system is failing 1 in 7 of us – from land grabs and climate change, to rising food prices and investment for small scale farmers.
“We know that it’s possible to feed everyone on the planet, but many go hungry because the food system is broken. We are campaigning to ensure that, in a world where there’s enough food to go around, no-one has to go to bed hungry.”
The Eden Project – People working together & with nature to change things for the better
The Eden Project is an educational charity and social enterprise based in Cornwall. Home to the world’s largest rainforest in captivity, Eden creates gardens, exhibitions, events, experiences and projects in the UK and around the world that explore how people can work together and with nature to change things for the better.
Project one: creating a global garden in a crater that was once a china clay pit as a symbol of regeneration.
Eden Project photo
Updated 13 March 2013