York student volunteers rise to the challenge
Posted on 19 June 2012
The Storytelling Festival, organised in partnership with the Yorkshire Museum and Gardens, is part of the University’s Summer Term Challenge 2012. The scheme allows student volunteers to demonstrate their commitment to the local community, while gaining valuable work experience to enhance their future career prospects.
Run in partnership with the University’s Careers Service, the Summer Term Challenge involves small teams of students taking on challenges such as collecting oral accounts for the York 800 celebrations and running events for the York Festival of Ideas. Students are also working with business to deliver York Children’s University activities, and creating resources for charities including the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and the York Blind and Partially Sighted Society.
More than 160 undergraduate students from the Departments of Education and English and Related Literature are taking part in the scheme, working with local heritage, cultural and education organisations.
Kate Harper, Acting Manager of the University’s Community and Volunteering Unit, said: “The University has fantastic students who have a lot to offer the city and community. This ambitious project is about helping students to develop their skills, enhance their employability and gain valuable experience in the sectors that are of particular interest to them, most notably the heritage and cultural industries and the education sector.
“Projects are designed to relate to students’ academic work, enhancing their classroom experience while building up their portfolio of practical skills.”
The University has fantastic students who have a lot to offer the city and community
Kate Harper
The Storytelling Festival, which is free and suitable for families, takes place on Saturday, 23 and Sunday, 24 June, with 18 students dressed in character delivering one-hour performances at 11.30am and 2.30pm in the Museum Gardens.
The stories have been written by the students, who chose the themes of extinct animals and Roman and Medieval York to reflect the Yorkshire Museum’s fascinating collections.
Jasmine Sahu, 20, a second-year English student, said: “I've really enjoyed the challenges that organising the Festival has thrown in our path. We've been tested creatively and in our planning skills, engineering a performance to suit the right audience, the Museum and our own creative vision. We've been ambitious and I think that will make it especially good to watch.”
Emma Williams, Assistant Curator of Archaeology and Science Learning at the Yorkshire Museum, said: “The students have shown a real interest in our collections and come up with some fabulous stories inspired by objects in the collection. We look forward to seeing them all dressed up and entertaining the children in the gardens this weekend."
The Summer Term Challenge 2012 programme is building on the well-established Volunteering and Enrichment scheme in which all first year Education students take part.
In total, 163 students will work on 19 projects. These also include creating a new children’s guidebook for York’s new visitor attraction Chocolate: York’s Sweet Story, placements at the Danelaw Centre for Living History, bringing the key research breakthroughs from the University of York’s 50 year history to life, and working on a digital recording project with English PEN, a human rights charity whose work promotes literature.
Notes to editors:
- For more information on student volunteering at the University of York visit www.york.ac.uk/students/work-volunteering-careers/skills/volunteer/
- For more information on the University of York’s Department of Education visit www.york.ac.uk/education
- For more information on the University of York’s Department of English and Related Literature visit www.york.ac.uk/english
Contact details
Keep up to date
Subscribe to news feeds
