My name is Kian, and I am the Employability and Volunteering Assistant at CFINE. I originally came to CFINE when I was 20 years old through the Kickstart scheme when I was on Universal Credit. At that time, I was living at home, unsure about what to do with my life and was struggling for motivation. The Kickstart scheme had me on a 6-month contract at CFINE where I was put into a general role. To begin with I was very nervous and it took me a month to build up the confidence for example, to answer the phone. However, after settling into my role at CFINE my confidence grew, and I discovered that I had strong interpersonal skills. At the end of the 6 months, I was lucky enough to be offered a full-time contract.
I assist Gill (our Volunteer Co-ordinator) with numerous volunteer related responsibilities. These include administrative work with our database and rotas and supporting the volunteers with their tasks. I also assist with our employability course, the Warehouse Skills Development Programme (WSDP). This is mainly support with the admin of the course and doing some things behind the scenes.
The volunteering opportunities at CFINE are massively impactful. All the staff within CFINE can see the positive change in our volunteers every day. Without the option of volunteering some of the people we support would be at a massive loss in terms of their mental and physical health. Our volunteers are amazing at CFINE as we always need support across a wide range of our services. Without volunteers the whole CFINE operation could not run as smoothly or as efficiently as it does. They are essential to the day-to-day running of CFINE.
In November 2023 alone CFINE had a total of 89 volunteers spanning over a total of 2500 hours! We have seen a steady rise in volunteers and that number keeps growing every month. In total for 2023 our volunteers gave 23,718 hours of their time to support CFINE! The support from our volunteers is incredible and we hope that the CFINE volunteer team keeps expanding.
CFINE is massively important to me. It provided me with a job when I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Now I have my own flat, feel much more confident and enjoy coming to work every day. CFINE also improves the lives of others. Whether it is clients accessing food parcels, our food pantries, the financial advice team, or volunteers giving their time to ensure our daily operations run smoothly. Without these services a lot of people would be totally lost and not know what to do.
I know without ever coming to CFINE I would have a very different mindset and would be worse off mentally, and probably physically. CFINE is an organisation of great importance to everyone who is connected to it in some way whether that be staff, volunteers, or beneficiaries. Thank you to all of our amazing volunteers, we could not do what we do without you!
If you would like more information on volunteering or to get involved, please get in touch info@cfine.org 01224 596156, thank you!
