special projects - employability through volunteering

Project Case Study

Anju Narayanan
"I first came across Reach when I was scouting The Guardian jobs site for a suitable opportunity. What attracted me to Reach was the thrust on professional skills - the idea of volunteering and making a difference with your professional skills sounded new and interesting!" Anju Narayanan had come to London from Bangalore, India in October 2007 accompanying her Management Consultant husband. A professional writer with a background in news journalism and Internal Communications, she was on the lookout for opportunities in the UK media.

Describing her first few months here, Anju says, "With every application came the standard response - I'm afraid we cannot go ahead with your application since we need someone with UK experience. It was the classic example of who came first - the chicken or the egg. Unless someone gave me a break, I wouldn't have the necessary UK experience."

And then, on an unusually bright January morning, came the call from Andrew Phillips, Development Manager at Reach. Andrew was looking for someone who could provide editorial support for the Reach website - building and editing content for the web, formalising its look and feel and developing a brand online. After discussing her new role with Andrew, Anju felt there was ample scope for creativity and innovative work in her new position." A month in, I realised that I was learning more than I was contributing. This new work experience gave me more than a glimpse into the NGO-sector in the UK, the work culture here and also some new web software that I had never used in India. The atmosphere at Reach was also extremely friendly and welcoming, and before I knew it, I felt very much at home, says Anju.

Anju wants to put in at least three to five months of quality work at Reach before she starts looking out for paid work. "The best thing about volunteering at Reach is connecting with its vast network of volunteers and staff. I have met so many people - both young and old - with a thirst to do quality work, that it is quite inspiring and it teaches you to never give up," she says.

On her contribution to Reach, Andrew says, "It's a great mutual partnership. I get the benefit of using Anju's high level skills and she gets the UK work experience she is seeking to enhance her immediate career prospects. She has already made a really significant contribution to our charity, using her skills to help us create our new website and enabling us to develop new and exciting ways in which we can promote the Reach services to our users".