Collage Art Workshop with Kingston Young Carers – A Student-Led Volunteering Project

I’m Leo and I’m a final year Kingston University student. As a student of art and music, I wanted to apply my passion for the arts to volunteering. Over the past two years, I’ve volunteered my time and skills and organised several workshops for the Kingston Young Carers in Songwriting, Street Art, Drawing Cartoons, and most recently, Collage Art.

Leo and Kingston Young Carers showing off their collage art!

At the beginning of a workshop, I usually like to prepare a short introduction, which presents the children with examples, as well as select good music to play in the background (in this case Beach Boys, Pete Rugolo and a Honky Tonk Piano compilation). This gets their creative juices flowing and gets them more excited about wanting to make art. Throughout the workshop I ask each of them what they are creating and why, which helps them to engage more with their imagination and creativity.

For the collage art workshop, I had to buy art materials for the kids to use. KUSU Volunteering gave me a budget to buy these supplies with, which included books, scissors, glue and paper. Oxfam Bookshops in Surbiton and Kingston generously donated some of their books to the session. I made sure that I set up the room and supplies ahead of time so that it was all prepared when everyone arrived.

If you don’t find listed volunteering projects that are of interest to you, the kind staff at KUSU Volunteering (Volunteer Co-ordinators Jemma Houghton and Alex Britton) can provide everything you need to realise your own student-led volunteering project with full support! This way, like me, you can adjust volunteering to your skills and interests to effectively give back to the community.