Entering the South Cloisters this Saturday morning, I found a group of cheerful and friendly UCL students painting each other’s faces with glitter and decorating themselves with Christmas garlands and accessories. Among them a dinosaur, a cheetah, a reindeer, a cave-woman and a moving banana.
In this bright and festive event, UCL Medical students gathered to walk 10km around London in fancy dress, with the aim of raising money for the annual running costs of Spectrum.
Spectrum is a volunteer- led charity whose primary objective is to support physically and mentally disabled children and their families in the Camden area. The charity provides a befriending service to children with special needs, respite to their families and gives medical students the opportunity to spend time with such children to further their understanding of physical and mental illness. Two student volunteers are linked to each child. Contact between volunteers and children takes place through frequent visits, in addition to group trips and an annual residential trip.
If you are a Medical student at UCL, this is a unique opportunity to contribute to an important cause while gaining valuable knowledge on physical and mental illness and the impact of such illness on the lives of children and their families, in a friendly and warm environment.
Written by Dione Sarantinou - UCL Photojournalist.
If you're interested in health volunteering, take a look at our current related vacancies!