About Volunteering WA
Volunteering WA (VWA) is a not-for-profit organisation providing leadership as the peak body for volunteering in Western Australia. As the custodian of the National Standards for volunteering in Western Australia, VWA promotes the rights of all volunteers within the community and supports the concepts of inclusive volunteering within not-for-profit member organisations. VWA provides a range of resources, services and support for the community on a state-wide basis.
VWA is a membership-based organisation with a key role of linking volunteers with community based not-for-profit agencies. The organisation provides a wide variety of benefits to both the volunteers it serves and the local community groups it assists by ensuring the supply of suitably matched volunteers.
Volunteering WA works hard to facilitate people with disabilities or other circumstances into volunteer positions. The focus on inclusive volunteering began in June 2006, when VWA received generous funding from the Disability Services Commission and Lotterywest. The ethos of the project was to empower communities to challenge the root causes of discrimination and to develop strategies for social change resulting in the increased participation of people with disabilities and mental ill health in community volunteering. In addition, the team had the responsibility of raising levels of disability awareness in volunteer-involving organisations both in urban and regional areas. The project was based on an idea funded by the NSW Premier's Department called the Side-by-Side project.
Volunteering WA has trained over 1000 people in disability awareness and placed many volunteers in positions around Perth and regional WA. Thanks to generous funding, VWA has awarded small grants to regional Volunteer Resource Centres throughout Western Australia. These grants were awarded to VRCs that developed projects to encourage people with disabilities and those recovering from mental ill health into volunteering.
Additionally, Volunteering WA has awarded larger grants to organisations that develop sustainable projects to encourage inclusion and raise awareness of important issues in the community.
This online resource is a tool to help volunteer managers and other staff of volunteer-involving organisations understand how to make their volunteer roster more diverse by using the skills and talents of the wider community. The benefits are reciprocal - both the organisation and the volunteer will reap the rewards.
Visit Volunteering WA online at http://www.volunteeringwa.org.au.
Act as if what you do makes a difference – it does.
William James
