The Active Choices Volunteer Project aims to support, empower, and improve the health and wellbeing of local disabled people through providing one-to-one support for them to get involved in social and leisure activities.
Action Disability Kensington and Chelsea is an organisation run and controlled by disabled people. We work to enhance opportunities for disabled people (with physical, sensory and hidden impairments), living or working in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. We have over 1200 members.
Many local disabled people were lacking the support they needed to access social and leisure facilities in the community. The Active Choices Volunteer Project was officially launched in September 2009 to address this.
Volunteers have supported service users to access a wide range of activities over the past few months, including:
- visiting local markets
- going for walks in the park
- visiting museums and art galleries
- riding on tandem bikes
- developing computer skills at ADKC’s internet café
ADKC now has over 40 volunteers, over a third of these are disabled people. So far over 150 individual volunteer requests have been met. The project has benefited ADKC members through providing support to take part in activities and reducing barriers to inclusion. Feedback suggests that taking part in the project has had a positive effect on service users’ mental and physical well being.
“A very big thank you, this experience has really helped me to expand my boundaries and I deeply appreciate the volunteer support.”ADKC Member
The project has benefited volunteers (both disabled and non-disabled) by allowing them to develop skills, engage in their local community and meet new people. Volunteering for ADKC has enabled many to progress with their careers; 2 volunteers have ended up being employed by ADKC and numerous others have been provided with references and gone on to pursue careers in the field of health and social care.
“I have just been offered a job as a support worker, this would not have happened were it not for you (ADKC) giving me a reference…I cannot begin to say thank you enough for doing this” Volunteer
