What better time than national Volunteers Week for Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service’s Volunteers to be supporting the annual Wyre Forest Young Citizens Challenge, currently taking place at Wyre Forest Emergency Services Hub (ESH)?
Running in early June each year, Volunteers Week is a chance to recognise the fantastic contribution Volunteers make to our communities and thank them for all they do.
Taking place concurrently, the Wyre Forest YCC, organised by West Mercia Police and HWFRS, gives all Wyre Forest Year 6 pupils – some 1,200 in total – an opportunity to take part in a series of scenarios designed to raise awareness of varying aspects of personal and community safety.
The exciting programme involves experiential learning as each scenario is interactive and based around pupil participation, with the aim of empowering the young people to make positive choices to maintain their personal and community safety at an important time of increasing independence in their lives.
With a variety of activities and events taking place, HWFRS’s Volunteers are centre stage in helping run the programme.
Giving the pupils a chance to explore the consequences of various courses of action in a safe environment, the programme provides a superb opportunity for the young people to work as a team and learn about themselves and society.
Messages to be delivered include fire, road, water and electrical safety and issues around anti-social behaviour, stranger danger and knife crime.
This year’s event, running across eight days from 7 to 17 June, has been put together by Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service, West Mercia Police, Severn Area Rescue Association, WMP Road Safety Team and Western Power Distribution, among other partners, with full support from the HWFRS Volunteers.
Currently standing at nearly 20, HWFRS’s Volunteers are drawn from all walks of life who want to do extraordinary things – actively supporting their local community as part of an exciting and dynamic organisation, and helping to reduce the risk to the most vulnerable, especially during these difficult times.
Caroline Webster, Senior Technician at the HWFRS Prevention Department, said: ‘With a wide range of backgrounds, our Volunteers are ideally placed to make a positive contribution to the Young Citizens Challenge and have been enormously helpful in setting it up and now running it. Nothing has been too much trouble for them and we’re so grateful.
‘Other activities they take on during a typical year include fire station open days and youth education initiatives such as Crucial Crew and Dying2Drive, helping us to promote the vital Prevention work of HWFRS.
‘Although we’ve finished our recruitment campaign for this year, we will be looking for more volunteers down the line, so anyone who thinks the role could be for them can find out more at hwfire.org.uk/join-us/volunteers – and keep an eye on www.wmjobs.co.uk where we expect to run the next recruiting campaign in early 2023.”
HWFRS Community Volunteer Bex Haywood-Tibbetts said: ‘I’m really enjoying being involved in the Young Citizens Challenge, it’s just one of the many activities I’ve been engaged with in the role that have made it fun and rewarding.’
Volunteers Week is run by NCVO each June, and you can find out more at volunteersweek.org
