"It feels like it is something that will effect change in people’s lives."

We sat down with George Way, a MSc Globalisation and Latin American Development student, to chat about his volunteering experience with Aspierations.

If you are interested in the work that Aspierations does, you can get involved as a Content Production and Marketing Assistant or Research and Marketing Assistant.

Would you be able to introduce yourself?

I’m George. I do MSc Globalisation and Latin American Development part-time. I started volunteering in August last year, and got into it over the summer between the two years of a part-time post-grad.

What type of volunteering have you been involved in?

I did the UCL Consultancy Challenge last summer, and then I went straight from that into Aspierations. The two weren’t linked, but after that experience I thought I wanted to do a bit more. I found the role at Aspierations on the online portal because alongside my degree I thought I had some time to do something useful with. That was the first place I looked!

What type of work does Aspierations do?

Aspierations focuses on employment opportunities for people with autism. When I first started, I sat down with Gabriel, the chairman, and he told me about how autistic people in the UK are the least employed group per capita. I think it’s really shocking, given a lot of these individuals are in a place where they could have very meaningful employment.

Aspierations goes out to universities, educational institutions, and individuals themselves to help with CV building, coaching for job interviews, explaining what a job might entail, and making links for them with their experiences to employability skills that they may not have reached on their own. It makes employment something that’s attainable to this huge group of people that, generally speaking, would want it if they felt they could have it.

The other side of it is going to businesses and ensuring that they’re providing an autism-friendly work environments. That could be reasonable adjustments at the interview stage. That could be ensuring that the office space is well-suited to someone that could be overstimulated. Whilst we aim to reach out to individuals to get them into jobs, it’s also about ensuring that once they’re there, there is a space that they can be comfortable and work well in, both for the people that they’re working for and also for themselves. I think it’s that two-dimensional approach that really interested me when I first went. I just think it’s a really good idea.

Autistic people in the UK are the least employed group per capita. I think it’s really shocking, given a lot of these individuals are in a place where they could have very meaningful employment.

What type of volunteering have you been doing with Aspierations?

At the start it was mostly web-research, looking into people we could reach out to. Then gradually over time, as we were getting more applications for volunteers, we realised that we needed to streamline that a bit. I stepped into a position of managing the volunteering on their side – conducting really basic interviews with people to see what they wanted to do for us and what we could do for them.

At first, I’ll have a notification from the UCL website that someone has registered their interest, at which point I’ll then email and try and set up a quick online meeting to answer any questions. And from there, you do a volunteer agreement. After that, I try to bring together them and more senior people – Gabriel and Laurel, the chairpeople – to keep that distance between the top and the bottom as minimal as possible. That was most valuable thing for me, so I try and foster that.

If there are any particular jobs that they are doing, I just check in every now and then to see how it is going. Fortunately, every volunteer there is from UCL, so it’s really great. It’s good to have that community, because it means that if we need to have a quick meeting in person, everyone is at UCL.

What I’ve really enjoyed is the fact that I work with the two people who run the organisation, and it’s a very short vertical structure. It doesn’t feel like I’m at the bottom of a long ladder and I’m just the person sat in the corner every now and then contributing. It feels like an actual position.

How many hours a week do you usually spend volunteering?

It’s fluctuated, alongside university and other things. It’s been very flexible. I try to keep it to one day a week where I work for Aspierations for 3 or 4 hours.

Has there been anything in particular that you’ve really enjoyed or taken away from the experience?

There are two sides to it, really. It feels like the work I do is actually important to Aspierations. It’s something that, if I wasn’t there, they’d need someone to do. So it feels good that I’m in a position to help.

But then, on the other side of that, from a personal development point of view it’s really good to work with people who are keen to put me into situations that will benefit me, like coming to shareholder meetings and speaking to senior stakeholders. Just before Christmas I went to their annual board meeting, and there was a slide that was ‘introducing George Way’ and – I didn’t think that was going to be on the agenda! I thought that I would just be in the corner. It feels good to be recognised in that sense. But the main thing is that it feels like it is something that will effect change in people’s lives.

I’ve also enjoyed watching the development of a platform that Aspierations had been building since starting in August. The other day I saw the design of the website for the first time and I was excited about it! I’ve seen it go along that journey and seen all of the stuff in the background.

Now we’re expanding to try and get more volunteers that can help out with that marketing side of things. It’s looking like it’s going to continue on the same trajectory as well, which is good.

One of the main takeaways is the amount of transferable skills that have come out it. Right down to the way I write emails is a bit different now. Just the small things like sending emails to big companies, as well as the larger things like leading meetings; I think the experience has made me far more ready to move from education to employment when I graduate.

How many volunteers are you working alongside?

The team of volunteers has gone up and down. At its highest, we had about 4 or 5 people, beyond me. It might not seem like a huge amount, but for a voluntary-basis thing that’s a decent amount of work being done by people just because they want to. At Aspierations, it’s largely 2 main people involved.

They also have this big shareholder base that, every now and then, you can reach out to and be like – 'Can you help me with this? What do you think about this?' We depend a lot on the goodwill of other organisations, like a lot of other charities do. It feels like a bigger community than it is on paper. They get a lot done because of how they have managed to create this goodwill that they can draw on to get these tangible projects done.

Is this an area that you would be interested in working in after completing your studies?

Before, I wasn’t particularly focused on neurodiversity as a subject that I would be interested in career-wise, nor was I interested in team-management as a role. It’s something that I did because I was interested in some volunteering and it sounded like a good idea. But now I do feel like I would be interested in both the subject and the position. I’ve even applied to jobs now for graduate schemes that focus on neurodiversity, which I never would have thought about before!

And, on the other side of that, I never really saw myself in team-leading jobs and stuff like that. It was actually the Consultancy Challenge as well that made me feel like I was able to take on this leading role at Aspierations. Now that’s put me in a position where I do feel that I’ve got a lot more stuff that I can put on my CV and that makes me feel like I can apply for these kinds of jobs in that kind of field. It’s opened doors in a couple of directions. And on top of that, having met some of the people that I’ve met through these meetings, I feel like I do have people now that, in the future, I will be able to call on. I think my LinkedIn has doubled!

It put me in a position where I do feel that I’ve got a lot more stuff that I can put on my CV and that makes me feel like I can apply for these jobs in that kind of field. It’s opened doors in a couple of directions. 

I think I’m very fortunate to have stumbled into it. I remember when I applied for it, I was just flicking through the volunteering opportunities and I didn’t really think much into it. But it was honestly from my first meeting with Gabriel where he explained everything to me that I knew I wanted to try and make this project happen.

It's really given me this opportunity of specialised knowledge into neurodiversity and autism as well. I have gone from being appreciative of the issues related to it, but not directly engaged with, to feeling like I really understand it. It’s an understanding of a real subset of it as well, in the field of employment. I think that specialised knowledge is really important, in terms of what people with autism are going through when it comes to getting jobs.

It's really given me this opportunity of specialised knowledge into neurodiversity and autism as well. I have gone from being appreciative of the issues related to it, but not directly engaged with, to feeling like I really understand it.

It’s also just important to know that organisations like Aspierations exist. Because people in any setting could read this or our opportunity page and it could just trigger something which lets them realise – oh, that’s me. The statistic is massive for unemployed people with autism, but an even bigger one is people who are struggling with social interactions but aren’t aware of why. It’s important to be aware that some people are there to help with any kind of facet of your life that it’s affected by.

Have there been any challenges you encountered throughout your volunteering?

I was worried that I wasn’t doing enough at one point, because I had a lot of stuff with uni part-time, and I work full-time as well, so I am busy a lot of the time. I got to the point where I did worry that I hadn’t done anything tangible in a while. But then this kind of became a positive experience as well, because I said how I felt like I hadn’t been doing much. But the whole time, Aspierations had just figured that maybe I was studying or something, which was entirely true. They were very understanding of it.

And then, there were also the basic challenges of the first time I conducted an interview and presented to the shareholders. I was a bit nervous but it went well! And now I would do it much more confidently, so again it was a positive in the long-run.

What advice would you have for people looking to get involved in volunteering?

I think it’s worth knowing that it’s going to be as flexible as you need it to be, particularly from my two experiences of UCL volunteering. I think if it’s something that you even marginally want to do, I would encourage people to do it. The organisations are always interested in the help, however much or little you can do. It’s ultimately going to be a good thing, both for yourself and for them. I think the personal development side of it is often underplayed, but I hope I can really stress how much I’ve gained from this.

Thank you to George for sharing his experience! If you are interested in learning more about Aspierations, you can find more information and their current volunteering opportunities available here!