Our Volunteers

Helen was born in Glasgow and moved to Dumfries and Galloway at four years old. She moved to Edinburgh in 2018 to pursue a Bachelor of Medical Sciences, where she will have graduated in the summer of 2022.

During her third year, Helen was interested in finding a new volunteering role which she could manage alongside her studies, in an area related to her passion for public health. This was first sparked by her work experience at Dumfries’ Public Health Institute in 2017. Therefore, the values of Poverty Child aligned with her own interests in poverty and health, and she began volunteering with Poverty Child as a Blog Coordinator. Focussing on street children living with disability was important as this group is often overlooked in charity work. Applying her research skills to develop meaningful content, while also developing her science communication, was an invaluable experience. She has enjoyed being part of a team of passionate volunteers, who all wish to improve the lives of street children.

Lucy was born and raised in Manchester, England and moved to Birmingham in 2013 to study for her bachelor’s degree in Geography and German. During the third year of her degree, Lucy spent nine months working as an English language assistant in a school in North Western Germany. After graduating in summer 2017, Lucy returned to Germany, this time working for a year as a Junior Researcher for the online statistics platform, Statista, in Hamburg. Lucy moved back to her hometown of Manchester in late 2018 and then started volunteering for Poverty Child.

Lucy was drawn to volunteering for Poverty Child as a way of combining her love for writing and researching social topics, with a desire to help those in need. She was inspired by her work with young people; not only her time spent as a language assistant in Germany, but also her experience volunteering as a maths tutor for Action Tutoring, a UK-based charity which aims to help disadvantaged children achieve academic success. These experiences showed her how vital it is support people from a young age in order to give them the best chances for the future.

Currently Lucy is volunteering as Content Coordinator for Poverty Child, writing articles for the charity’s blog. One of her favourite pieces is a post titled ‘Street Children: Everything About This Global Humanitarian Crisis’, which gives a rundown of the scale of the crisis, its root causes and the long-term problems that are created if not tackled. So far, Lucy has enjoyed learning about the challenges faced by street children across the world and using what she’s learnt to educate other people and spread awareness of the issue. She has also loved working with other members of the Poverty Child team, who are dedicated in fighting poverty faced by the world’s street and slum children.

Megan has grown up in Warrington, and still lives there whilst studying Politics and International Relations at The University of Manchester. Megan’s passion for writing has been made stronger during her time at university as she has seized several opportunities to write many articles and journalistic pieces for a range of publications, and has also worked with the university’s Marketing and Communications Department.

Megan also works for a supplementary education provider where she enjoys aiding the educational growth of the students. It is this interest in helping children to reach their full potential, coupled with her interest in global issues and writing, that led her to apply for the role with Poverty Child. Despite Megan’s prior experience in creating content, this is her first voluntary role and she is excited for her future at Poverty Child.

It was the values of Poverty Child that inspired Megan to volunteer for the organisation – their determination to ensure every single penny goes straight towards their cause struck Megan as a great value, and one that is also convenient as working from anywhere with WiFi instead of an office fits in well with her university timetable and commute! Megan’s first project with Poverty Child is her series of blog posts about the charity’s recycling initiative, which she has thoroughly enjoyed taking responsibility of. She is excited to see how her creativity and content creation can help Poverty Child in the future.

Alex works as a content writer and journalist for a variety of publications including contributions to many social awareness campaigns, featured in The Guardian and The i. He became involved with Poverty Child through a fundraising position last year to develop an event in his local community in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

The event ‘Chorlton Charity Clear-Out’ bought the bars of Chorlton together as ‘drop-off points’ for the local community to bring their donations. With drop-off points across Chorlton, the local community was encouraged to get down to their local, have a drink and donate their unwanted clothing and gadgets for street children support initiatives worldwide.

Through generating brilliant copy, engaging local audiences and attentive communication with the local bars, Alex gained coverage in ’LovinManchester’ (50,000k plus readership), gained tremendous reach of the Poverty Child message and ran a truly fantastic week long event.

Yushan was born in China and completed her undergraduate degree in the United States, doing Journalism and Media Studies in Rutgers University. She is currently studying Marketing in the University of Edinburgh for master’s degree. The study in the US and UK broadened her horizons and offered her an open mind.

The campus life in the US allowed her to come across a series of activities by non-profits. She have also participated in event coordination as a volunteer in the university, which inspired her to support a worthy cause. With the knowledge of child poverty in developing countries and her hometown, she realised she can help improve the lives of children in need.

Yushan chose to join Poverty Child because of the dedication of her fellow volunteers, who are keen to empower street and slum children. As Social Media Coordinator, Yushan is able to use her previous experience in social media and digital communication to promote the wonderful work that Poverty Child is doing to fight poverty and end the existence of street and slum children internationally. She manages all of Poverty Child’s social media channels, and is excited to share child poverty facts and engage the audiences.

Callan began studying Creative Writing at Liverpool John Moores University in 2014, where he worked in various writing and editing roles. He’s currently working at Bluecoat as an Engagement Assistant, facilitating events and contributing to Bluecoat’s social media. He’s the founding editor of Independent Variable, a charitable science-themed poetry organisation raising proceeds for non-profit Iodine Global Network. In 2019, he received his MA in Poetry from Manchester Metropolitan University.

Callan’s been working as Content Coordinator, building webpages for the volunteer section of Poverty Child’s website. He’s gained further knowledge and experience in digital copywriting and web design. He’s enjoyed putting his skills to good use and being part of a worthwhile cause.

Volunteering with Poverty Child has been a great way for Callan to use his love of storytelling to help contribute to tackling global issues. Working remotely allowed him to maintain his busy schedule and work when it suited him. Whilst his work at Bluecoat and Independent Variable contribute to different charities, it’s shown him the value of participation, which he was keen to champion in his work with Poverty Child.

I am a graphic designer who graduated from university in 2017. I studied Graphic Communications at Birmingham City University. After doing various different graphic design roles I have decided that I would like to pursue a career in the events industry being an events co-ordinator.

I decided to join Poverty Child as a volunteer as a way to gain experience in the events industry. I put on the event 'Street Sounds' which showcased a range of different talents from local people within Birmingham. I enjoy putting on events for other people and saw this as a great opportunity to test my skills and raise money for a good cause. I regularly do freelance graphic design work but this was a great new experience and has inspired me, even more, to go into an events role.

Brittany grew up in Hertfordshire and moved back to her home town once she had completed her BA Hons English Degree at Bournemouth University in 2018. Brittany has always had a passion for writing, but while studying she also developed a passion for events management. In 2019 once settled back home and into a new job, Brittany knew she wanted to pursue this passion for events which is when she became involved with Poverty Child, where she set up a fundraising event within her local community.

The event “Charity Spring Clean” was aimed at business parks within the Hertfordshire area. These parks became ‘drop-off points’ to promote the employees to recycle all their unwanted clothes, books and gadgets, while simply on their way to work. Due to such a high volume of business parks within her local area, the event ran for 3 weeks and was spilt into categories, so the employees had time to contribute as much as possible.

Through this well-planned fundraising event Brittany managed to engage her audience who donated an exceeding number of boxes to a wonderful cause. A truly magnificent achievement raising money for Poverty Child.