Khizra Mosque

What was the challenge you identified?

Due to the pandemic, many of our existing volunteers had to shield due to their age or health conditions. We needed to find a new cohort of volunteers to help our centre run in a Covid-safe way and to assist with the activities we hold to support the wellbeing of our community. We provide befriending services, laptop hire and digital inclusion sessions, and much more, to help people that may be at risk of loneliness or isolation.

What was your solution?

We used social media to recruit some new volunteers and had a really good response. Lots of people that had been furloughed joined our team – many had not volunteered before. We made sure that the new volunteers were fully trained in a safe manner.

What difference has it made?

The volunteers played a huge part in ensuring our activities helping those isolated and digitally excluded could continue. The projects also included working with a food bank, working with homeless people and delivering cooked meals to NHS workers. The volunteers ensured that our centre ran smoothly, in a Covid-compliant way.

Some of our usual volunteers were unavailable due to shielding, but we kept the community connected by running a befriending service focused on digital inclusion, and members of the community who were furloughed volunteered. Khizra Mosque, Manchester