Volunteering service

Why volunteer
Volunteering is an opportunity to get involved in the day-to-day delivery of Refugee Council's work. Volunteers work side by side with staff across the charity supporting client services, administration, marketing, fundraising, and policy development. We have attained the Investing in Volunteers award.

Refugee Council has more volunteers than staff and our work would be impossible without their support.

What our volunteers do
Direct services: Some volunteers work directly with asylum seekers and help them through the many different stages of the asylum system. For example, volunteers work as Client Advisors, English Teachers and Health Befrienders.
Office-based services: Volunteers also support our advocacy, fundraising and administration teams and work as Administrators, Events Organisers or Researchers.

How we support our volunteers
As team members, we provide volunteers with support and development opportunities and Refugee Council allows volunteers to attend our professional training courses when possible, free of charge. We integrate volunteers into our teams by issuing Refugee Council identification cards and IT accounts as needed. We also support our volunteer Client Advisors to gain accreditation with the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC).

Through sponsorship from the Marsh Christian Trust, Refugee Council also provides volunteers with the opportunity to design and set-up a new service for new clients.

Volunteer roles are unpaid, but we can reimburse volunteers for lunch and travel costs. (Unfortunately our limited budget only allows for local travelling costs.)

What we expect from our volunteers
Some roles require specialist skills, for example, specialist advice work; but most roles only require enthusiasm and an interest in refugee and asylum seeker issues.

We ask all volunteers to commit to one day/one session per week and for a minimum of three months. If this level of commitment is not possible for you, please consider working as a Volunteer Fundraiser.

Where our volunteers work
We have offices in London, Yorkshire and Humber, the West Midlands and the East of England.

We thank you for your interest in our work and your willingness to be a part of what we do. All of our voluntary opportunities are posted on our website and we may not be able to respond to general enquires. Thank you.