V.Y.P.I. is a group of like-minded people from all backgrounds who come together to create impact by sharing knowledge and taking action to help young South Australians to participate in meaningful volunteering.
Established February 2021, the group was a merging of the existing student volunteering working group under the first strategy and the student volunteer champions network, led by the Department for Education.
V.Y.P.I. provides an important forum for identifying state-wide issues and opportunities around how young people can connect with and participate in the community, as well as encouraging young people to give their time freely and feel supported and valued for their contributions.
The group is currently progressing three projects:
- Best practice showcase
- Social impact assessment
- Young changemakers
Previous achievements:
- delivering the Curriculum of Giving – Student Volunteering Workshop in May 2019 to the three education sectors, volunteer-involving organisations, the business sector and local and state government agencies on integrating volunteering into the school curriculum and supporting student volunteering programs
- developing a suite of resources to help teachers and community organisations engage young people as volunteers and establish volunteer programs.
- delivering information sessions to support educators to help build on volunteering work that students are already doing or which will help to create a new volunteer program that links to the Australian curriculum
- conducting research to investigate the impact of implementing student volunteer programs in schools
- supporting Volunteering SA&NT and other volunteering resource centres to deliver training for volunteer involving organisations to implement safe and effective student volunteering programs.