Congratulations to Nor, a Canley resident and Warwick alumna who has won the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) Active Citizens Award.

Warwick Volunteers uses the skills, energy and enthusiasm of our volunteer students to run a wide variety of projects which benefit the community around the University in Coventry, Leamington, Kenilworth and Warwick.

Projects include working with children in schools and after-school clubs, young adults, people with disabilities, and community groups.

Read a round up of activites in Student Volunteering week here.

Students from the University of Warwick were among the volunteers working with the Inland Waterways Association and the Canal and River Trust to clear a stretch of the Grand UnionCanal in Leamington Spa at the weekend.

In addition to tyres, fishing line and plastic bags, the team pulled three motorbikes, 28 bicycles and 40 shopping trolleys from the watery depths, as well as several pushchairs, a pram, a complete ‘Pay and Display’ sign on a pole and the street sign for Llewellyn Road.

One of our e-Business Management students Saknakosnak Prum (Nak) has been awarded the prestigious “Chevening Volunteering Award" for his tireless work with the local Canley community.

Nak, originally from Cambodia, who is a Chevening scholar, has been praised as a ‘great ambassador for the University.’ Despite his demanding Master’s schedule, over the past year he has also worked alongside Warwick Volunteers in the local community helping at special Easter events, Pop Up Cafés and on the creation of the Canley community garden.

In addition Nak has also volunteered at CoderDojo events with Technology Volunteers and helped out at the Wheels for All Santa Ride, approaching everything with great energy and enthusiasm.

Nak was presented with his award from the Chevening Secretariat at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London in June.

Kenilworth PHAB came to the Warwick campus to celebrate the Chinese New Year. This event was actually originally suggested by one of the PHAB members, who used to live in Malaysia when he was younger.

There was a huge turnout, with over 20 PHAB members and 12 student volunteers. The room was beautifully decorated with red paper lanterns and filled with Chinese New Year songs too!

Staff and students from across the University have very generously contributed hundreds of toys and gifts for looked after and vulnerable children in Coventry.

Father Christmas himself helps to give out the presents at Coventry City Council's annual Christmas party for vulnerable and looked after children.

It is a sad truth that for many of these children, this might be the only present they receive this Christmas.

Our student volunteers joined volunteers from Tesco and local residents to take part in the autumn canal clean up in Leamington Spa on Sunday 23 October.

OPERA could help improve life for vulnerable people in Leamington. Free weekly classes are being launched for those over the age of 18 suffering from dementia, Alzheimer’s and other mental health issues. Warwick University student and Leamington resident Nic Miller hopes the two hour workshops will help improve well-being and encourage some of the most vulnerable members of society to socialise.

Whitley University of Warwick student Stephen Pithouse has received a first class degree in engineering from the University. Stephen, who attended Whitley Academy School, had not considered even going to University until a team of volunteer University of Warwick students, led by Margaret Low a Principal Teaching Fellow in WMG (Warwick Manufacturing Group), visited his school to help pupils learn about computer programming for robotics.

This summer sees a host of events taking place in the local area - from festivals to carnivals and music to food, and lots of free and ticketless entertainment on offer.

Over the course of the last year we’ve heard from staff, students and alumni in the 50@50 blog series, sharing their take on life at Warwick. Catch up on recent posts as the 50th project team look back over our anniversary year, including their best moments – and the most challenging!

A team of 5 University of Warwick student volunteers won this year’s TCS Tech Challenge at the finale on Wednesday 16th December in London. The TCS (Tata Consulting Services) Challenge pitches teams of students from 6 UK universities against each other in an 8 week real life consulting challenge. The teams, with the help of two TCS mentors, work with a charity local to their university to address an IT need identified by the charity. 

The Ashmolean Latin Inscriptions project, a collaborative project between the University of Warwick and the Ashmolean Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents is organising ‘The Walking Dead’, as part of the Ashmolean’s DEADFriday Event on 30th October 2015. The live event celebrates the installation of a new Roman columbarium (tomb) in the Ashmolean, with a real life Roman funeral procession showing visitors how it was originally used.

Twelve student volunteers from across the University travelled to India this summer, in groups of four, to live and work at the Laksh Foundation – a small NGO in Haryana, India which offers free extra-curricular tuition and supervision to around 300 children, aged between 3-18.

The work of Warwick Volunteers in the Canley neighbourhood has been acknowledged by Coventry City Council and teachers and children of Charter Primary School.

Students from the University of Warwick have taken part in 1202 hours of voluntary work for Student Volunteering Week. The ‘Every Hour Counts’ themed series of events were completed by 521 students, in addition to their regular weekly volunteering activities.