With London 2012 behind me, I’ve been looking for other volunteer opportunities; projects more local to my area or those that are raising funds for a charity. The first real opportunity came via one of the London 2012 Facebook groups. Specifically, a fellow Ceremonies Volunteer Performer advertised that she was looking to recruit volunteers for Oxjam Clapham Takeover Festival. I jumped at the opportunity as it was a music festival all in aid of Oxfam whose mandate is to fight poverty and injustice across the globe.

In its inaugural year, Oxjam Clapham would be part of a month-long music festival. Specifically, hundreds of Oxjam festivals taking place throughout the month of October, all in the aid of Oxfam. And since the first festival in 2006, Oxjam has raised more than £1.75 million in total for Oxfam’s work. Impressive.

The amazing thing is that all the music festivals are volunteer run. Sure there is guidance from Oxfam to ensure that certain guidelines are followed, but everything is done by volunteers. So I willingly gave my time on Saturday, 13th October. Specifically, I helped with venue setup, sold wristbands and even went out with one of the Oxjam buckets to encourage folks passing by one of the venues to dig deep for spare change. It felt very fulfilling. So next year, I’d like to get more involved with the festival to ensure that it meets and even surpassess its fundraising goal. It holds so much promise.