Eleven of the many volunteers who help and support the work of the Refugee Council have won awards in the Year of the Volunteer Awards. The Year of the Volunteer 2005 is being led by Community Service Volunteers (CSV) alongside Volunteering England and with support from the Home Office.

The Year of the Volunteer is a year-long celebration of the work volunteers do and a call to action to get more people volunteering. The awards acknowledge and celebrate the contribution of volunteers in England.

Volunteers have been nominated in one of five categories: innovation, commitment, impact, inspiration and partnership. 2,005 commemorative medals have been struck by the Royal Mint and were awarded to the 401 most deserving volunteers in each of categories.

The volunteers from the Refugee Council were awarded the prizes for their outstanding dedication and hard work in helping support refugee and asylum seekers across the UK. Many are refugees or asylum seekers themselves and have dedicated hours of time and effort to ensure that refugees and asylum seekers get the right support, information and services to help them while in the UK. However, the eleven award recipients are only a small number among many more (approximately 350) without whom the work of the Refugee Council would be possible.

Chris Badman, the Refugee Council’s Volunteer Development Co-ordinator said:

“Volunteers are crucial to delivering the services that our clients need and in raising awareness of the facts about asylum. Without the dedication of our 350 volunteers we would not be able to run the services that our clients so desperately need. We are very proud that so many Refugee Council volunteers have received this recognition.”

The Refugee Council award-winning volunteers will join the rest of 2,005 medal recipients and be shortlisted to 10 runners-up and one overall Category Champion per English region for each category.

All Category Champions will be invited to attend a Year of the Volunteer celebration event in London in January 2006, where the overall Champion of each category will be announced on the night.