Volunteering for WISH
West London Initiative on Single Homelessness

Everyone who works for WISH is a volunteer and we rely entirely on their combined efforts, commitment and, above all, enthusiasm to provide our services helping the needy people of West London.

As you will see from elsewhere on this site, our main activity in the past has been the Christmas Roof providing shelter, food, clothing, advice and simple hospitality to our guests over the Christmas and New Year period. As you can imagine, such an effort required a lot of bodies, around 400 last time, and a wide range of skills and experience.

In 2002 we ran a day centre serice over the Christmas week, providing hot meals, televised entertainment, companionship and advice. We are currently recruiting volunteers to help with this.

Soon after the 2000 Roof closed, we began our Sunday Breakfast service. To run this and the Roof successfully, and as we plan developing other services, we need to expand our existing volunteer base, both in terms of numbers and skills.

By now, hopefully, you are asking yourself whether you would make a good volunteer. There is one simple test: Do you think you would like to use some of your spare time helping the homeless of West London? If you have answered yes - keep reading.

The main attribute of any volunteer is a willingness to "get stuck in" but you will appreciate that being able to call on specific skills makes everything run much more smoothly. Experiences that we know will be put to good use include:

• catering (menu planning, buying, cooking, serving etc.);
• medical (doctors, dentists, nurses, first aiders etc.);
• practical (carpentry, plumbing, electrical etc.);
• personal services (advice workers, hairdressers, clothing distributors, entertainers etc.);
• office skills (word processing, telephone answering, database management, record keeping etc.).

Or you could help in other ways, such as:

If you are already on our list of volunteers, please make sure we have your latest address if you have moved in the last year or so. If you are new to WISH and want to receive further information please e-mail us at homeless@compuserve.com, or write to the WISH office or check back to our site for updates on volunteer opportunities and new services.