Skye's Story

1. Introduce yourself

My name is Skye, I’m 17 (almost 18) years old and I am a young activist, I volunteer with a few different organisations, iWill Movement, Scottish Youth Parliament, LGBT Youth Scotland, Children in Scotland/Suicide Prevention Scotland, “We’re Not Going Anywhere!” Campaign, Be The Change. Media Network, Shelter Scotland and St Andrew’s First Aid (I might be missing a few though haha!) 

2. How long have you been volunteering with them?

I started volunteering with different charities since I was 15 years old and I’ve slowly been building them up since then! 

3. Why did you decide to begin volunteering?

I first got into volunteering and youth action when I joined the Scottish Youth Parliament, I was elected Member of the Scottish Youth Parliament for LGBT Youth Scotland, from then I was given so many other opportunities to work on campaigns and with so many different organisations that have developed my skills and allowed me to continue on with my social actions. 

4. What have you enjoyed most about your time volunteering?

I have enjoyed meeting all the amazing other young people doing social actions, I met one of my best friends in one of the opportunities with the iWill Movement and it has been honestly amazing. 

Also being able to see other young people gaining more confidence and growing as their social action journey continues, the passion you see from them when campaigning on issues that matter to them is extraordinary. 

5. What benefits have you experienced personally?

My confidence growing. I feel a lot more comfortable being myself and speaking publicly and about things I’m passionate about, being able to highlight issues me and my community face on a day-today basis is so rewarding to me. 

6. Do you have any stories you could share about your time volunteering?

There are so many stories I could share about meeting The King, First Minister, whoever but the one that sticks with me the most is during a workshop I was facilitating, there was this person who at the beginning, felt very anxious and didn’t want to talk. I tried to include them as much as possible and keep the space open, by the end of the workshop, they ended up standing up and talking to the whole room about how they were anxious at first but felt confident and safe enough to speak and that has probably been one of the most rewarding parts of my volunteering. 

7. Has there been any challenges? How have you overcome them?

There have been a couple challenges during my social action work, one of which is hate mail, as I advocate a lot around LGBTQ+ rights and specifically transgender rights, there are a lot of people who don’t share my opinions, one person decided to email me and it was a hateful email saying how I “should keep that s**t away from kids” but the more I think about it, the more I realise that I’ve reached the right audience, the audience that needs this education and knowledge because without it they’ll continue to be hateful towards a group of people they’ve probably never met. 

8. Would you recommend volunteering to others?

I would 100% recommend volunteering, it can provide such invaluable experience, and it is honestly so rewarding! 

9. What would you say to anyone who is thinking about volunteering?

If you’re thinking of volunteering the best advice I can give is to just go for it! There is no ‘perfect time’ begin volunteering, if you do wait for that then you’ll be waiting quite a while.