As part of Mental Health & Wellbeing 2020, the Volunteering Service is promoting the benefits that volunteering can have on mental health. Amongst other things, volunteering can: give a sense of purpose, boost self-confidence, promote learning, bring happiness, and help you to stay healthy. We hope to demonstrate this by introducing you to Microvolunteering.  

If you are looking for a way to get a flavour for volunteering or a way to squeeze volunteering into a busy or unpredictable schedule, then Microvolunteering might be for you. Much like regular volunteering the activities are many and varied but the level of commitment is much lower.  

We have chosen some examples that will hopefully appeal to a broad range of students as well as highlighting benefits to mental health and wellbeing. 

Zooniverse enables you to participate in a wide variety of projects taking place across the globe. As a volunteer you can increase your knowledge in your own subject area or try something completely new whilst knowing that your input is benefitting important research.  

In contrast The Wildlife Trust’s actions to ‘Help Wildlife at Home’ provides a number of ways that you can support the natural environment whilst benefitting from being outdoors and knowing that you are doing your bit.  

It’s important to understand that you can make a difference even through very small actions. Think about how you can help your neighbours or make somebody else’s day better through a small act of kindness. This might be sweeping the leaves from the path outside your building, collecting litter on a walk or giving an elderly relative a call.  

To give these Microvolunteering activities a go this November visit our News & Events page for more information and links. If you are interested in exploring Microvolunteering further visit our ‘Virtual Volunteering’ page to browse other projects that you can get involved with.  

We would love to know if you think that volunteering has had a postive impact on your mental health and wellbeing. Please get in touch with us at volunteering@eusa.ed.ac.uk to share your experiences. 

If you would like to find out more about the impact that volunteering could have on your mental health and wellbeing the Mental Health Foundation and The National Council for Voluntary Organisations both have interesting articles on the topic.