Volunteers' Week webinar: Volunteering in emergencies

Earlier this month, the Emergencies Partnership hosted a Volunteers’ Week webinar which saw us joined by five guest panellists and over 70 partners to discuss the role of volunteers in emergencies. We also explored lessons identified from previous responses and how we might lead and work differently to better protect, motivate, celebrate and champion volunteers in all parts of the emergency cycle.

“What was really important for me was making sure that everybody who walked through that door had a sense of being treated as a human being.” - Tracey Pook

First, we heard from Tracey Pook, Community Engagement Coordinator at Didsbury Mosque, who told us about her community’s response to flooding in Greater Manchester at the beginning of 2025. Heavy rainfall led to the River Mersey bursting its banks and hundreds of people being evacuated from their homes.

Didsbury Mosque opened their doors to become an evacuation centre, welcoming over 400 people from all faiths and cultures. Local people and volunteers arrived at the Mosque with cooked food, tea, coffee and supplies for those who had been evacuated and supported in finding temporary accommodation for those who needed it. They were also supported by responders from the British Red Cross.

“There's resilience within volunteers and often we forget about that when it comes to the type of work that we do.” - Mubeen Hussain

We were also joined by Mubeen Hussain, Islamic Relief’s UK Programmes Manager, who reflected on 2024’s racist and Islamophobic riots and how they impacted their volunteers at the time, and volunteering since. Security concerns last summer led Islamic Relief’s services to move online and whilst their partners saw a decrease in service users due to worries around safety, their volunteers were keen to ensure support continued.

During Ramadan in March 2025, over 1000 Islamic Relief volunteers engaged in community activities across the UK, making it one of their most successful Ramadan campaigns ever. They have also been looking to utilise their volunteers’ potential with many now also supporting partners throughout Islamic Relief’s networks, offering their skillsets to the wider community.

“Work is happening. Let's be a part of it.” - Mabala Nyalugwe

We then heard from British Red Cross User Researcher, Mabala Nyalugwe, about what volunteering looks like in 2025. Mabala described how the British Red Cross is looking at volunteer transformation to see how they can better support communities, acknowledging that local groups often know their communities best and have the networks and expertise to best support them.

They are also exploring how to keep their volunteers engaged outside of a response, particularly when many of them may have undertaken training. Mabala explained how they are looking at new roles for volunteers, and a new training pathway so that when there isn’t a response, volunteers can be working on preparedness or community partnerships.

“There are a lot of lessons learned both positive and negative. We don't want to shy away from those negatives” - Dave Stott

Next, we were joined by Dave Stott, Assistant Director for Volunteering at the Royal Voluntary Service (RVS). RVS was one of the organisations that delivered the NHS Volunteer Responders programme that was implemented at speed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Over 2.7 million tasks were done by responders, however the programme has now been discontinued.

Dave spoke about the importance of RVS, NHS and Government reflecting on the past five years and identifying lessons for any future iterations of the programme. He also recognised that there had been questions around whether support should have been commissioned locally versus nationally and explained the challenges of striking a balance between online and face-to-face support.

“We’ve found a really good increase in the number of parish and town councils who have gotten involved and produced emergency plans.” - Lesley Knight

Our final guest was Lesley Knight, Senior Civil Contingencies Officer for Somerset Local Authorities' Civil Contingencies Unit. Lesley told us about Somerset Prepared, a partnership that sees organisations visit others to educate them on emergencies and preparedness. They also work alongside the Somerset Rivers Authority to run flood cafes, resilience road shows and flood warning workshops. Over the past couple of years these have been particularly successful with an increase in the number of parish and town councils producing emergency plans.

Lesley is also the chair of the Somerset Emergency Voluntary Agencies Group, and described how following flooding in January, she utilised the group’s capabilities.

A huge thank you to all our guests and speakers. If you would like to attend any of our future events, please email: info@vcsep.org.uk