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The national charity and leading voice for disabled people in sport and activity

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Meet Angel, a Get Out Get Active volunteer in Bradford

Volunteers Week runs from 1-7 June and the annual event is a fantastic chance to celebrate the difference volunteers make to every community. Get Out Get Active is working with Volunteering Matters to ensure more volunteers can access opportunities all year round. One of these volunteers is Angel, who is supporting the Bradford activities.

Bradford GOGA logo

With an estimated 14 million people volunteering at least once a month, volunteering has a huge impact on our communities and we should make every effort to celebrate this. Recognising and valuing volunteers is an important feature in good volunteer management.

Get Out Get Active (GOGA) is a UK wide programme funded by Spirit of 2012 that aims to encourage disabled and non-disabled people to take part in and enjoy activity together. Working in 18 locations, GOGA is reaching the least active individuals in the community through fun and inclusive activities.

Volunteering Matters is a national partner for the GOGA programme. Together with other local and national partners, Volunteering Matters is working to create more opportunities for people to support GOGA activities.

Through GOGA, there will be many opportunities for volunteers from mentoring and buddy roles through to marketing, evaluation and delivery roles. In return, volunteers will have the chance to learn and develop new skills, build confidence and help to make their community healthier, happier and more cohesive.

Here is Angel’s story:

My name is Angel, I’m 16 years old and I’m studying my A Levels. I volunteer on a Monday night at the Manningham sports centre, helping out at the ladies night session. I wanted to start volunteering with a variety of different age groups so I looked online and came across the GOGA programme. I got in touch and within weeks, I was involved with the GOGA programme and volunteering.

Prior to being involved with GOGA I have always enjoyed sport making me feel happy. However, I didn’t have anyone to do sport with so it made me feel alone at the same time. I wanted to get involved with volunteering because I aspire to become a Police Officer when I am older. It will help me to provide them with evidence that I have worked with a variety of people with different cultures and beliefs.

Now volunteering for the project has made me feel very positive and enthusiastic- and I have fun! Being involved has increased my confidence, and meeting the people has had a positive impact on my life. It’s been a rough past six months, so doing sport and being part of GOGA has really made me happy. Volunteering at the ladies night is something I really look forward to, and it helps forget the negativity.

I would strongly encourage people to come forward and volunteer for the programme as well as anyone who would like to come and take part in ladies night to come and give it a go. We do Zumba, circuits and badminton and all the women are lovely and so friendly.

Find out how you can volunteer in your community and for the GOGA programme. Visit the Volunteering Matters website here