The Welsh Refugee Council (WRC) was set up in 1990 to meet the needs of asylum seekers and refugees for support and advice. Currently they have four offices in Cardiff, Swansea, Newport and Wrexham, improving the lives of people who are sanctuary seekers or refugees through specialist support and influencing policy and practice.
C3SC has worked in partnership with WRC for a number of years, supporting WRC to create a Wales where people who are sanctuary seekers and refugees are welcomed, respected, and empowered.
The Cardiff Volunteer Centre @C3SC regularly delivers a volunteering outreach session in the WRC office in Cardiff offering information about opportunities for volunteering and takes part in Employability Workshops which are held in person and online. We have recently been involved in making a video – ‘A Day in the Life of Welsh Refugee Council’ – which features staff and volunteers sharing their experience and the employment pathways that volunteering can lead to.
Volunteers at WRC are engaged in a wide range of roles – helping in triage which involves greeting people and making calls, helping their caseworkers, or teaching English in their ESOL classes.
Martin Smidman, Volunteering and Partnership Manager of WRC who won Cardiff Volunteer Coordinator of the Year award at the Cardiff Volunteer Awards 2023 said, ‘Across all our offices, we currently have over 50 volunteers and around 40% of our volunteers are people who are asylum seekers or refugees. The volunteer journey helps them immensely because it gives them the opportunity to find out about the work, and then if it interests them, they’re in a strong position to apply for jobs. We have a very proud record of enabling volunteers to go into paid roles with us. In the last five years, 22 volunteers have taken on staff positions. All of our triage staff are former volunteers, as are a number of our case workers.”
If you’d like our team to host a drop-in session with your organisation and share information about the benefits of volunteering and the opportunities available in Cardiff, please contact us on enquiries@c3sc.org.uk or 02920 485 722.
