Software to Snowfights

Latest volunteer News

At Church Urban Fund we are loving having three cheerful Italian students in the CUF Communications department. This is a first office experience for Chiara, Alessia and Mariaelisa, all from Apulia and they’ve been a wonderful help since they arrived two weeks ago. We hope they are enjoying and gaining as much benefit from the experience as the previous three volunteers who ‘blew in’ this January. Read on for a few of their memories - from software to snow fights.

Diego Gonzales

What he loved

It was a really good experience to connect with the city. The office is in a very touristy location which I wouldn’t have got to see otherwise. I got to learn technical skills by using the database and I also helped with infographics, so I learned how to use the graphic design software.

What it meant

I found it interesting to see the problems facing England. For me, coming from Mexico, I feel like most people think people in London, and the UK in general, have no problems, and once you’re here you see it’s a whole different reality. I’m very excited to go back to Mexico after my finals, where I will be working at the National Institute for the Evaluation of Education. I think the volunteer experience on my CV helped me to get this internship, especially the fact that they saw I was able to do research on my own and didn’t need much assistance.

Louise Gerodias and Juria Bajracharya

Heard about CUF at a school fair and decided to volunteer. They weren’t disappointed!

What they loved

The great thing about the office experience is that you get to understand the dynamics of the workplace. One time I went to the bank with Eleishia and learned how all the funding works, that was the highlight for me.

I was very excited when they gave me the chance to work on the board – I like boardwork, I used to do it in high school.

I started the database work in the first few weeks and I was happy to do that because I was just a volunteer and it was only my first week and I felt good that people here could trust me to do something very important. It’s a very important part of the work. I felt good having a responsibility – it motivated me to do more and to focus more on the work of the organisation.

Being a part of this organisation, we were able to engage more with the wider community in the city – if we hadn’t volunteered we probably would have just gone to class, gone home and just done the touristy stuff.

We got to know more about the church and its different branches. I’m a volunteer for a church organisation back home as well, so I was really interested because CUF is a part of the Church of England, so when we did database and infographics work on dioceses, that was helpful for me to get to know how religion is approached here in England.

Knowing and understanding the intricacy of the issues that people living in London have you better understand the intricacy of the city itself.

The funny stuff

There was real excitement when the first heavy snowfall of the week happened. As the flakes started to settle Sam suggested an impromptu lunch-time snowball fight and we all piled outside.

Sam is such a cool, laidback guy, I like working with him.

Calling all students:

If you want to get involved, you can do as many or as few hours as you wish to. Please just contact Sam Low at 0207 898 1645 or sam.low@cuf.org.uk