Peng Peng Chen is a UCL BSc Geography student and took part on the week-long UCL Charity Consultancy Challenge.
Tell us a little about your volunteering
Along with eight others, I was assigned to a charity called Starfish Greathearts. Starfish Greathearts aims to change the lives of vulnerable or orphaned children in South Africa. We were tasked to provide a report that utilises horizon scanning. The report had to focus on three main development objectives: social media, marketing and digital fundraising. Through teamwork, we were expected to provide actionable and easy-to-implement strategies. The work was spread across three days from 10 am until 4 pm.
How did you find out about the role?
I have always been interested in volunteering projects, especially those that involve vulnerable children in Africa (I was born and raised in Zimbabwe and was engaged in similar volunteering activities). While browsing the Volunteering Service’s website, I came across this challenge, which immediately caught my attention. Deciding that I wanted to use my past experiences and learn more about consultancy, I accepted the challenge.
What difference do you feel you’ve made by volunteering?
Through constantly communicating with our client, we were able to find several weaknesses within their system (i.e. their website) and made suggestions for improvements. We were able to provide several recommendations that are either short-term or long-term. We believe the charity can implement these recommendations relatively easily and maximise its community output.
What impact has volunteering had on you?
The experience enhanced my time management skills as we were under a lot of pressure. It was entertaining (and challenging) to produce quality work while time was running out. Under such a stressful environment, my communication skills improved as a quick and precise discussion or suggestion with peers could speed up our work drastically. In terms of my academic studies, the volunteering experience improved my ability to conduct research. I can now locate what resources I need with greater efficiency.
What’s the best thing about volunteering?
It was definitely the teamwork; it was a joy to meet and work alongside people from different degrees and study levels. The feeling of achieving a goal where each team member contributed was terrific. Other than teamwork, the sense of participation in a good cause was also enjoyable. Knowing that your work is relevant and could be adopted by the charity to help vulnerable children was most rewarding.
And the most challenging? How did you overcome the challenges?
Since we only had three days to pull up a report, we could not provide as much data to back up our claim as we had hoped. To overcome this, we decided to pinpoint the most significant data and included only that. To produce the report, we split ourselves into three groups, each with one objective to complete. The split worked fine, but our work often overlapped with each other due to the objectives having areas of similarities. The answer to this challenge was good communication skills. We frequently held short meetings where a representative from each group would inform others of their progress. Having such meetings allowed us to have good knowledge of what information the other groups have included and thus reduced the risk of overlapping.
Tell us about something memorable that’s happened to you whilst volunteering
Personally, I enjoyed the lunchtime talks with my fellow teammates. We shared our backgrounds, interests, studies, interesting facts and - most importantly - our food. These conversations were fun and helped us to know each other better, which also improved our collaboration while working.
Would you recommend volunteering? If so, why?
Of course! Not only does it look great on your CV, but you also gain more insight into consultancy. Your efforts are for a good cause, and every little contribution you make will benefit someone in need elsewhere. Being part of a team meant you would get to make new friends of various levels and degrees. During the challenge, you will not just talk about work-related stuff with your teammates but also have fun stories occasionally when you have a lunch break.
The experience enhanced my time management skills as we were under a lot of pressure. It was entertaining (and challenging) to produce quality work while time was running out.