UnitingCare Volunteering Portal

📃 This volunteer opportunity will help to provide valuable life-skills and educational and wellbeing opportunities to our residents; by connecting them with nature, promoting environmental sustainability and stewardship, fostering community and social connections and personal wellbeing. 

This role would be well suited to someone who loves gardening and wants to share their enthusiasm with the next generation! 

Iona House is a voluntary, residential youth shelter located in Kirwan. We provide emergency and short-term accommodation to young women between the ages of 16-25 who are experiencing homelessness. 

We provide a warm, welcoming and homely space to our residents, where they can heal. We teach them practical life skills, including cooking, budgeting, cleaning and other home making skills, while encouraging them to take guided steps to improve their circumstances and situation. 

Gardening is a calming and therapeutic activity, reducing stress and promoting mindfulness. Community or shared gardening brings people together, fostering a sense of belonging and shared purpose. 

Introducing young people to gardening can provide them with lifelong, practical skills, access to fresh, healthy food products and promote physical exercise and mental well-being. 

The Shared Gardens Steward will work together with staff and residents to develop and maintain the shared/common area garden spaces at Iona House and share practical, hands-on knowledge and experience to propagate, plant, grow and harvest vegetables and herbs and gardens within the property grounds, to assist in reducing food waste and promote sustainability and budget friendly home gardening techniques. 

📍Location: Family Services | Iona House,  

✅ What you’ll be doing: 

🎁 What’s in it for you? 

💍 Commitment: Get started from as little as 3-4 hours Weekly  

☑️ Requirements of this role include: 

▪️A desire to share your sound, practical knowledge and experience of home/residential gardening; 

▪️ Experience working with youth/young people; 

▪️Ability to operate the shared gardens within a limited budget; to promote reduced food waste and low-cost home gardening techniques; 

▪️A current Blue Card, or Working with Children clearance as our residents are under 18;  

▪️Current first aid and CPR qualifications are a benefit. 

☑️ We’ll need to do the following checks before you start: 

UnitingCare values diversity in our organisation and we have some principles in place that will help to promote both inclusion and access.  If you have any other accessibility requirements, please discuss these at the time of the interview.