Millennium Volunteers was a national UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 government initiative, set up with public funding, and aimed at people aged between 16 and 24. It offered a wide range of volunteering

Volunteering

Volunteering is generally considered an altruistic activity, intended to promote good or improve human quality of life, but people also volunteer for their own skill development, to meet others, to make contacts for possible employment, to have fun, and a variety of other reasons that could be...

 opportunities, with support and accreditation for young people. On April 1, 2007, the Millennium Volunteers scheme was taken over by the newly established charity 'v', who have assumed interim management of the scheme, in preparation for the launch of a new National Volunteering programme to succeed Millennium Volunteers in January 2008.

Millennium Volunteers were partnered with BTCV

BTCV

BTCV is a British charitable organisation that works to facilitate environmental conservation through practical tasks undertaken by volunteers...

, a national charity whose resources were used to provide an MV service in some regions.

The nine key principles

• Sustained personal commitment
• Community benefit
• Voluntary involvement
• Inclusive
• Ownership by young people
• Variety of opportunities
• Partnership
• Quality of volunteering opportunities
• Recognition of achievements

Activities

Millennium Volunteers could become involved with a wide variety of different activities, some examples include:

• helping to run a local scout troop
  Scout Section (UK)
  The Scout section is the direct descendant of the original Scout Patrols which formed The Scout Association of the United Kingdom in 1908. The section is open to both boys and girls between the ages of 10½-14 years, and are now formed into local Scout Troops.Scout Troops form part of a Scout Group...
  
  
• working in a hospital
• creating a community garden
• conservation work
• classroom assistant in a school for disabled children
• sports leaders
• helping on trips with younger students
• Taking part in a Cadet program, Air Training Corps, Army Cadet Force, Sea Cadets

The only requirement was that the activity was unpaid and it benefited the community in some way.

Rewards

The organisation encouraged young people to work for the good of their community by offering two rewards that could be used as proof of the hard work they have done. The first reward was given on the completion of 100 hours of community work, and an Award of Excellence upon completion of 200 hours. An award for 200+hours was also available. The 200 hour award was encouraged to be completed within a year.

External links

• National Millennium Volunteers web site (redirects to 'v')
• Derby Millennium Volunteers web site
• BTCV web site