This month is sustainability month: every day, various events have been organised in order to give us insight into environmental issues. Today, as a King’s student, I attended the “Connecting with Charities - Political Change” workshop, where four speakers introduced different ways in which we can get involved politically and environmentally with charities.

Democracy Volunteers

Political change will be a keystone in the battle for sustainability, as the reach and influence of governments far outweigh what we are able to do as individuals. The first speaker presented a charity called Democracy Volunteers. This organisation is centered around making sure that elections and the democratic process in general stay fair. We see it around us: public opinion is shifting towards favoring a greener future, less focused on pure economic growth and more focused on building a durable and sustainable society.

Democracy Volunteers’ mission is to improve the quality of our democratic process. This is mainly possible through election observation where volunteers go to polls on election day and conduct various studies. They then advise the government on how to improve by fighting fraud and malpractice. Beyond just voting every few years, working with this charity would help us better fulfill our democratic duties.

King's Sustainability

The second speaker was a representative from the King’s Sustainability Team. We first discovered where King’s stood in regards to its environmental objectives. Some elements, such as the fact that we’ve increased our recycling rate to 70% in 2020 from 37% in 2017, have allowed our uni to be ranked 5th worldwide in the Times Impact table.

The great news is that the King’s Sustainability Team also offers many opportunities to help through volunteering. These include river cleanups or working at local community gardens or even sustainability auditing, with training from the charity SOS-UK.

If you want to register interest in King's Sustainability, so that you can be contacted for various volunteering opportunities, you can click here.

I also greatly encourage you to attend the event organized by SOS-UK. It’s called Education for climate action with SOS-UK, and you can find it here.

Human Appeal

During this workshop, a humanitarian global charity called Human Appeal was also presented. They work on a myriad of different projects, including international development projects, life-saving and life-sustaining projects, as well as environmental projects. Their work on solar energy in Pakistan is a good example of a sustainable impact they have had. The charity is looking for humanitarian assistants, so if that sounds like something you’d be interested in, make sure to check out their website!

KCLSU Widening Participation Buddy Scheme

Finally, a fourth speaker led a discussion around inequalities and disparities in progression to higher education by children in the UK, and how the Buddy Scheme can help reduce drop-out rates.

During this one-hour event, we discussed various topics around democracy, education, and of course sustainability. Make sure to check out some of the other awesome events that are happening during this sustainability month!

If volunteering sounds like something that you might want to try out, you can find many volunteering opportunities on the KCLSU website here, or subscribe to our newsletter.