Young people lead the way for tolerance and diversity

Sir, With hate crime and intolerance on the rise, I would like to tell your readers how, in our experience, young people are leading the way when it comes to tolerance and diversity.

We recently conducted a study of our student volunteers and found evidence of some amazing development, both personally and professionally.

Some 95 per cent of students we asked said that their volunteering experience made them more tolerant towards others, with 96 per cent saying it made them become more aware of diversity issues.

And that’s not all – it’s clear that volunteering very often inspires greater participation in wider society, with 79 per cent of our student volunteers said volunteering inspired them to play a more active part in their communities.

What’s more, previous research revealed that over half of our volunteers believed their volunteering experience had improved their prospects of getting paid work.

I work for Revitalise – an incredible charity that provides respite holidays for disabled people and their carers at our three accessible holiday centres across the UK.

We are proud to operate the largest residential volunteering programme of any UK charity. In the last year alone, our residential volunteers donated in excess of 3,000 weeks of their time, the vast majority of whom were aged 16-25.

We have plenty of inspirational volunteering opportunities waiting for you – to find out more about our charity or to become a part of our family of vibrant volunteers, visit www.revitalise.org.uk or call 0303 303 0145.