Volunteers to return to London after Games Maker success

Luke Jacobs Monday, February 4, 2013
11:35 AM

Unemployed youngsters are to be deployed as volunteers at major events in London this summer.

The scheme is part of London Mayor Boris Johnson’s attempt to build on the success enjoyed by the London 2012 Games Makers.

Team London ambassadors, recruited by the East London Business Alliance and trained up in Tottenham, will also be placed in six schools by 2016 to plant a vegetable garden and inspire children to volunteer.

The volunteers will attend the UEFA Champions League final at Wembley in May, St Pancras railway station, the O2, the ITU Triathlon, Remembrance Sunday and New Year’s Eve.

Ten per cent of them will be between 18 and 25 and not in education or employment.

Mr Johnson said: ‘We are providing young people with an excellent opportunity to boost their employment prospects with sound, on the ground work experience and training.

“Team London volunteers will soon be bursting through the doors of schools across the capital, I hope that this initiative will inspire young Londoners to get out and support their local communities.’

More than £1million will be put towards the initiative by the government and the Greater London Authority.

It was based on Mayor Bloomberg’s Citizen Service model, founded in New York and 16 other states in 2006 to tap into voluntary activity to improve the city.

Legacy ambassador, Lord Coe, said: “We enjoyed one of the greatest summers in living memory last summer with the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the world saw the very best of what Britain had to offer.

“The Games Makers and Team London Ambassadors were an unforgettable part of that.

“They were inspired by the millions of volunteers who day in day out support our communities and I am confident together they will deliver a clear legacy over the next ten years.”