Student Footprints and course links at Jewel & Esk College, Edinburgh

The majority of volunteers at Jewel & Esk College were from the ‘Working with Communities’ NQ Intermediate programme, with one from the HNC course. On these programmes, the students are required to undertake a volunteering placement in a community organisation to successfully complete their qualification. The project was able to link up with some of these organisations to allow the volunteers to audit the buildings of their placements. The HNC students were also able to count Student Footprints volunteering hours towards the volunteering hours required by their course. This course link was particularly important in ensuring the success of the project at Jewel & Esk College because it meant that the peer support between the volunteers ensured that the drop out rate after the training was minimal and the volunteers had confidence to go into local community organisations together to carry out audits.

Anita Baggs, ‘Working with Communities’ course tutor, Jewel & Esk College reported that “the students are now aware of carbon footprints. It has definitely raised their awareness, in college and local communities. They were very enthusiastic after the training and could not wait until they started investigating! I feel that we could build Student Footprints into the Working with Communities programme and deliver to the full class as part of the course. I am sure all courses would benefit from raising awareness in this subject.”

Created: Mar 16, 2010