From a fourth-year Crankstart Scholar to new Freshers…
The University of Oxford offers the Crankstart Scholarship so students can study without added financial worry. A minimum of 25 hours of volunteering is required for the Scholarship and many exceed this minimum. Yasmin Jackson, a fourth-year Scholar, shares their experiences with Oxford Hub while volunteering with us.
“Starting out at any university can be a scary experience. Throw in all the strange Oxford customs, a tough workload, the prospect of completing your volunteering hours, and of course a global pandemic and no one could blame even returning students for feeling a bit overwhelmed… or a lot overwhelmed. Oxford can be a bizarre, stressful, wonderful bubble and, true to its claim, a gateway to opportunity. One of these opportunities arrives in the form of working with organisations such as Oxford Hub, a local charity filled with some of the most brilliant, bubbly and kind people I’ve ever met. Their premise is to support the community, students and residents alike, bringing together people and other organisations to make Oxford a better place for all.
If you’re a fresher then the piece of advice I give to you as a wise old fourth year is to make full use of this brilliant service. How do I hear you say? Read your emails! Go on the website! Check Facebook! A quick glance at https://www.oxfordhub.org will immediately show you an abundance of volunteering options and ways to get involved in various projects: from FELLOW which provides free English language lessons to those wanting to improve, to OxUnboxed, Oxford Hub’s non-profit plastic-free refill shop. Delve a little deeper and you’ll encounter Social Enterprise Awards which enable university members to start up social impact projects, offering them support in the form of funding (up to a generous £5000), check ins, training with staff, free publicity and network introductions. For the tired students among us you can even volunteer from your own bed with plenty of online projects like Phone Links and Social Action Labs. Dog-walking is also listed as a volunteering activity, as part of Oxford Hub’s Together Neighbours programme, but personally I think that’s more of a gift. As well as these there are community support programmes, helping to fight the difficulties and inequalities that the pandemic has exacerbated, and youth programmes dedicated to protecting the future leaders of our planet.
For me personally, Oxford Hub has been fantastic. Many a time I have reached the end of summer and realised I hadn’t completed all my volunteering hours. A quick panicked email to the Oxford Hub in the morning, and by noon we had sorted out a plan for me to complete Crankstart’s compulsory 25 hours tailored to my interests. Oxford Hub arranged with FELLOW for me to work extra hours and then invited me into their office to write some blog posts and do some research. With 2020 being the year I’m trying to actually implement some time management, I had a 1:1 meeting with the lovely Madeleine who came up with a list of flexible organisations for me to contact, allowing me to sign-up whenever I (very rarely) have some free time. Oxford Hub isn’t just purely a tool for Scholars to use for their volunteering hours, it also offers some great social events throughout the year. These have recently included virtual escape rooms, volunteering taster days and a Q&A and Quiz event in which Scholars had the opportunity to win a £20 Amazon voucher whilst meeting other Scholars and the Crankstart Council Team.
Now back to all those worries I mentioned at the beginning. Oxford Hub has helped me alleviate every one of them. Not only have they succeeded in adapting our volunteering projects to a cyberspace world but they have managed to do so in a way that’s accommodating to the stressed student and which also adds value to the CV as well as life itself. The sense of fulfilment that achieving social change and making a real impact brings is profound, and Oxford Hub is the perfect vessel to obtain it.”
YASMIN JACKSON
To learn more about the Crankstart Scholarship and the support we offer, check out our Scholar page by clicking here, or drop Madeleine, our Outreach & Communications Officer, an email at madeleine@oxfordhub.org.
