Projects: North Lanarkshire Connections

North Lanarkshire Connections is a project that VANL delivers in partnership with North Lanarkshire Council Social Work Department, Bazooka Arts and LEAF.

VANL’s main involvement in the project involves developing and promoting ‘Timebank’ volunteering to support vulnerable people in the North Lanarkshire area.

The project is supported by the Big Lottery Fund over a five year period.

What is a Timebank?

A Timebank is a way for people to share skills with others in their community and be rewarded for it – in time. For every hour of time you give providing a service for another participant, you receive one “time credit”.

What can you do with your time credits?

You can exchange your time credits when you need a service for someone else. You can give them to a member of your family who needs some help, or you can save them to use in future.

Who can receive time credits?

Anyone can participate and become involved in Timebank volunteering. Young people can share know how in whatever interests them, the elderly and housebound can cook for events or make friendly calls.

Age, ability, lack of finance, or limited mobility are no barriers to becoming a ‘Timebank’ volunteer with the North Lanarkshire Connections project.

What type of volunteering is involved in Timebank?

Here are just some of the types of volunteering services people give and receive as part of Time Banking:

Shopping
Sports
Pet Care
Gardening
Listening
Home Visits
Cleaning
Ironing
Car Washing
Cooking
Computing
Budgeting

The kind of services you can give and receive are informal types of volunteering, often the kind of things most people do to help other people out without even thinking of it as volunteering work.

An example of Timebank volunteering

If you go shopping for an elderly neighbour, and it takes you three hours, you can bank three time credits. If you were then to cut the grass for your neighbour another day, taking two hours, you would have another two credits to bank, taking you to five credits, and so on.

Then, with your five credits, you might contact VANL and let them know you need your computer fixed. VANL will then search for a match and a Timebank volunteer with the relevant skills and availability to help you. If it takes a volunteer one hour to fix your computer, then you would exchange that one credit to them. Or you can give your credits to someone else you know who needs something done.

Getting Involved

VANL holds a Timebank database for North Lanarkshire, and you can become involved by contacting us.

VANL will register you as Timebank volunteer, and from there you can negotiate to bank and share your hours and time credits with other registered Timebank volunteers.

If you would like to know more about the North Lanarkshire Connections project, or possibly registering to become a Timebank volunteer, please contact VANL

Contact:

Duty Officer

01698 358866

dutyofficer@vanl.co.uk

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