COMMUNITY AND VOLUNTEERING
How is In Her Hands a community project?
A core aim of In Her Hands is for the project to be shaped and developed by the community it serves. We believe that in order to create the most impact, people need to keep participating and feel their voice is heard. On our community days we take time to listen to volunteers and ask questions about what they want from the space, as well as having lots of fun. On March 5th 2023 we had our first official 'community meeting' which brought 20+ people to the workshop to help shape how we best meet their interest and how our governance/decision making involves them.
What are our community days?
Community days are just that! Days for the community. In Her Hands is not a commercial workshop - it is a safe and supportive learning environment curated to empower people and cultivate community. These day-long events offer non-transactional ways to get involved in the project, learn new skills whilst meeting new people, and contribute to our project! With a communal lunch and plenty of tea breaks for chit-chat and sitting around the fire, it is an an environment that participants have described as 'feeling like home'. But unlike the boring stereotype, it's not just nattering we get up to; past community days have involved building tool sheds, work benches, outdoor furniture, painting/decorating and working on our 'mini food forest' garden project.
Can I volunteer with you and learn skills?
Absolutely! We have a variety of different roles that we need your help with. In return not only will you learn new empowering skills (or have a supportive space to hone and develop skills you already have) you will meet new people, be part of our growing community and help make change. See below for our volunteer roles.
If you would like to be involved in future community meetings, get updates and first news on all the latest community events please sign up with your email to our community volunteer contact list below.
Want to join in?
Here's how you can get involved!
This is a grassroots project and will need lots of help and contributions to thrive. Here are some ideas for how you could help transform the vision for In Her Hands into reality, but if there are other ways you'd like to contribute please get in touch too. We want this to be a community-lead project!
VOLUNTEER ROLES
Community Day Volunteer
Come along to one of our community days and help us develop our workshop space and grow our community at the same time! There’s a focus on fireside chats and fun, as well as hard work. Our most flexible volunteering option with zero time commitments.
Workshop Facilitator
If you are experienced in any form of construction or craft labour we'd love to hear from you about facilitating a workshop. In Her Hands aims to cover the many categories of building and share as many skills as possible! We are also looking for on-going support from anyone who could help facilitate our weekly open access day and be a general guide for advice and help as we learn and craft together. As well as sharing your skills and empowering others, you'll have access to the workshop space/tools and be part of a supportive, fun community of builders and makers!
Workshop Assistant
Pallet breaking, sanding and preparing wood, denailing and angle grinding, tool maintenance and aid to workshop development. No prior building or tool experience necessary. If you'd like to volunteer your time to help you'll get a hands-on teaching in these processes and learn fundamental building skills along the way!
Fundraising And Community Networking
Help us network and communicate with the local community in lots of different ways. Identify potential local business and community partners for fundraising, outreach etc. Search for donations of wood, materials and tools (e.g. by getting in touch with industrial estates, building sites and tool brands and telling them how amazing In Her Hands is).
Social Media, Graphic Design, Web Development
We want In Her Hands to have the strongest reach possible. Therefore a fair amount of creative and authentic effort needs to go into speaking to our audience, sharing information and keeping our website well looked after. If you would like to be involved in any graphic design, social media/content creation, web building and development please email info@inherhands.org to get involved!
Garden Gnomes
Help us create a garden that provides healthy food for lunches, fresh herbs for teas and flowers for the workshop, as well as being a beautiful green space with a focus on wellbeing and connection with nature. No experience necessary, learn along the way with regenerative, forest gardening techniques!
If you're interested in any of these roles please email us at info@inherhands.org and we will send you a full role description! Alternatively if you have something to contribute that you don't see on this list please email us and we can chat about what suits you!
“I'm really glad I found out about the project - it's helped me realised that I can do much more that I give myself credit for. The days I've been at the workshop have been so smooth thanks to Georjie's help and guidance when it came to working with power tools I've never laid hands on before" M.R (volunteer)
"Volunteering with other like minded women at the In Her Hands project was a first for me, and it certainly won't be the last! The facilitators delivered instructions in such a clear, respectful way that made me feel very comfortable and confident to experiment and play." A.H (volunteer)