Funds for student volunteers

Otago Polytechnic students will soon be able to add volunteering to their CVs after the polytechnic approved funding for the Scarfie Army in 2013.

The Scarfie Army was launched last year and based on the student army which helped out in Christchurch after the earthquakes in 2010 and 2011.

Otago Polytechnic health and safety manager and project sponsor Terry Buckingham said the funding would make it possible to put about 400 students and staff into volunteer projects as well as hire someone full-time to co-ordinate the project.

Students would also be able to get a printout of their volunteering record to go alongside their academic record, he said.

One of the goals was to get polytechnic students out volunteering in the wider Dunedin community, Mr Buckingham said.

''We had some really good feedback from groups about the projects we did last year.

''This year, we need to make sure we work in with the community wants,'' he said.

Last year, automotive engineering students serviced vehicles for Dunedin community organisations free of charge and students also took part in a clean-up of the Otago Harbour basin.

Mr Buckingham said he hoped the volunteer army would be up and running by about April, once the co-ordinator position had been filled.

Many students who were engaged in their home communities lost those connections when they came to Dunedin to study, he said.

One of the aims of the project was to provide an opportunity to those students who wanted to be part of and help the wider Dunedin community,

Mr Buckingham said Otago Polytechnic director of communications Mike Waddell said the polytechnic saw the project as a way for students to make a social contribution to Dunedin.

One of the polytechnic's aims was to prepare citizens for the world, and giving them the opportunity to help in the community was part of that, Mr Waddell said.

- by Tim Miller