BEST VOLUNTEERING ORGANISATION
HIGHLY COMMENDED BTCV, UK
Pioneering the big society
A GENERATION BEFORE DAVID CAMERON started talking the talk about ‘the big society’, a British volunteer organisation was walking the walk – and is still doing so today with as much vigour as when it began more than 50 years ago. The British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV) was launched in 1959, by the now defunct Council for Nature, primarily to develop a volunteering force to help manage the country’s new national parks and nature reserves and find engaging ways to keep young people occupied and out of the cities. Back then, it was known as the Conservation Corps. Its first residential volunteering holiday was in 1960, when a group camped in Norfolk where they tidied up a nature reserve reed bed. Even as late as the 1980s it was still primarily aimed at young people, but during the 1990s the focus broadened out from purely environmental to include cultural, education and urban programmes, and the volunteers got older – they now range from 18-80 – and more diverse. In 1999 BTCV
launched its Environments for All campaign, pioneering the inclusion of black, minority ethnic people and marginalised groups such as asylum seekers and volunteers from deprived areas. It also launched the Green Gym campaign, which turned conservation
The volunteer experience ‘IT IS LOVELY TO BE A VOLUNTEER and feel appreciated for contributing to other’s lives. Without an experience like this, many people, especially if they are poor, do not want to volunteer. They think “why should they ask me to do something for nothing when we have no money?” Like me, they need an experience to find out what they can gain. It is not true that all unemployed people want to do nothing. We have really bad press. I want to contribute. Here I have found something that is not a job but I am contributing.’ Volunteer with the Glasgow Gardening Course Group
into a health opportunity (and enabled BTCV to tap into project funding from health and local authorities). In the past two years, BTCV has enabled 266,884 volunteers to achieve 466,569 days of practical environmental improvement work in 6,941 different communities. Most are in UK, but around 20 per cent volunteer overseas. ‘It’s an extraordinary achievement made up of thousands of achievements by the individuals and groups BTCV has worked with,’ says international head Anita Prosser. All BTCV’s projects are developed in partnership with local communities and organisations and the aim is to stimulate local activity to the point where BTCV can step aside and let the local groups take the projects forward themselves. With its BTCV Conservation Holidays – ranging from weekends to two months – the organisation pioneered volunteer tourism. Destinations are mostly in Europe, including Iceland, but also feature Japan, Cameroon and America. ‘Our work breaks down barriers, particularly in reaching out to groups who weren’t traditionally involved in volunteering,’ says Anita. ‘We empower people to help others and help themselves.’ www.btcv.org.uk
WHAT THE JUDGES SAID Founded in 1959, BTCV was ahead of the curve. The heritage and scale of their tourism activities and what they have achieved impressed the judges. No other organisation comes close to mobilising volunteers in such numbers and their target to actively support 1.5 million people in environmental action in the period from 2009-2013 demonstrates their ambition.
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