Isobel Hume is working for the Council for Voluntary Action in Wales, UK, as the Volunteering Events Coordinator. That role incorporates responsibility for coordinating Wales' participation in IYV2001 and the planning of the annual UK Volunteers Week, which takes place in June. She also is involved with a new media-linked initiative in the UK, called TimeBank, which is a BBC-backed initiative, focusing on having people give time rather than money.
Previously, she worked for Raleigh International, a youth development organisation that runs three-month expeditions overseas for young people 17 to 25. Isobel worked on a regional programme in Cardiff, Wales, which was funded by the UK Millennium Commission. The programme recruited 110 volunteers from Cardiff, who then spent three months in Ghana, building schools, doing environmental work and trekking (amongst other things). On return from Ghana, they each committed to doing 100 hours of volunteering on specially designed community based projects, with the idea being that they would transfer the skills learnt on expedition in Ghana back to Wales. Before that, Isobel also worked in Scotland for another youth development charity called Project Trust, which placed volunteers in teaching and social care projects overseas. The placements were for 12 months. Isobel was involved with recruitment, selection and training, and managed the volunteers based on the Namibia and Thailand projects.
Her own personal volunteering included a year of teaching TEFL in Namibia and her work with young people with challenging behaviour and learning disabilities.
