Job Description
Join us in the mission to make London the most accessible city in the world. Volunteer with Travel Hands (www.travelhands.co.uk), a service designed to ease the outdoor commute of VIPs (Visually Impaired People) by pairing them with sighted & verified volunteers to walk together to similar destinations ensuring a safe, convenient, and inexpensive travel experience.
You get to participate in the most flexible volunteering experience that enables you to help whenever you want based on your flexibility. It is an opportunity to breathe some fresh air, walk some more steps in the day, relax and make some new friends in your area. In the nearby future, as a thank you, you get the benefit of turning your steps into points, in return converting them into potential rewards, as incentives from affiliated companies that pursue and value their customers under corporate social responsibility programs.
Why are we making Travel Hands?
Think about your daily journey. How many intersections or staircases do you navigate, signs you pass by, paths and roads, or changes at the tube or bus stations? How many people cross your path, only for you to have to suddenly change direction? Now think about how much harder your day would be if you were partially sighted, or blind: this is what it’s like for the 285 million VIPs in the world.
And no, this is not a niche problem. For these people, navigating busy urban landscapes can be extremely challenging. Guide dogs can offer huge support, but with the cost of breeding, raising, and training the dog (and their eventual user)approaching £63,000, it’s not an option for the most.
TfL currently offers VIP, Freedom Passes to travel for free and has a system in place where blind people can ask for on-platform assistance. But even walking to the bus stop or to the tube station is tough. Even for the shortest of distances, a VIP has to face the hassle of booking a taxi when making an unaccompanied journey. The trip is normally made through a phone call and entails an average waiting time of 20 minutes, despite being a brief 10-minute walk.
This is where Travel Hands comes in. You, as a volunteer, will be required to help VIPs navigate through roads safely whilst having interesting conversations, building friendships, or simply breathing fresh air. Your volunteering help, which is flexible and could be according to your personal schedule, will create a lot of positive impacts:
- Ensure that VIPs save on average 30 minutes for every journey undertaken and £100 on travel costs per month.
- Create new social interactions and explore opportunities in life that VIPs never enjoyed before.
- Reduce carbon emission by reducing the use of taxis and single-mode transportation by VIP.
- Improve physical and mental health by encouraging walking and social interaction.
Skills and qualifications:
You do not require any qualification for the role and we will be providing online training to make you aware of the ways to walk with a VIP
What we are looking for in a volunteer:
- Ability to empathize with the problems faced by VIP and acknowledge the mission of the company, VIP World Services
- Good time management skills, being able to schedule walks with VIPs and arriving at the meeting point on time.
- Committed & Reliable
- Compassionate
- Patient
- Trustworthy
- Good Listener, we would appreciate it if our volunteers can have interesting chats with VIPs whilst on journeys.
Requirements:
- Must be 18 or over
- Will be required to perform a DBS check before becoming a verified volunteer
- Must be in a physical condition to walk without anyone else’s assistance
Does this sound like you, please register with us on-www.travelhands.co.uk
About VIP World Services
VIP World designs solutions for organisations that would like to make websites, mobile apps, or services inclusive for VIP by considering the WCAG accessibility standards and by first-hand user testing & feedback from the VIP World Community members.
Job Types: Full-time, Part-time, Volunteer
Salary: £1.00 per year
Benefits:
Ability to commute/relocate:
- London, Greater London: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (preferred)
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