Author: Diane Porter

I have just come back from Oxford where I have been finding out how Oxjam and Outreach are going to be working together.  This is fantastic news for Outreach!  Oxjam is a high profile, major fundraising event for Oxfam.  It consists of a huge number of multi-venue music events across the UK which take place in October and planning for Oxjam starts now.

Outreachers know the local music venues and events in their area, Oxjammers have the contacts and the event management experience to make it happen.  Oxjammers will take the lead in organising the events and doing the fundraising – Outreachers will get to campaign at a huge number of events with great audiences who already know something about Oxfam – an unmissable opportunity to reach thousands of people. 

From May onwards the Oxjam Regional Managers will be meeting with Outreach Coordinators across the North West.  This means I will need to have as many active Outreach Coordinators as possible in locations across the region.  And as each Outreach Coordinator will be looking for active and reliable Outreachers, now is the time for everyone to get involved.  All attendance at Outreach events is recorded so that those who attend the most will get priority for the over subscribed events.  Not only will you get to hear some great bands, there will be after-parties and all sorts of fringe events to go along to.  Watch this space for updates!

I knew Oxfam did great work and I wanted to be involved but I didn’t expect quite an intense introduction.  It was only my second week as an intern in the NW Campaigns office when the Haitian earthquake struck.  It was a real insight into how Oxfam works – everyone in the office seemed to just

Oxfam badges, action cards and sign up sheets- the day to day tools of an Outreach coordinator in the North West

spring into action to work towards getting assistance to Haiti as quickly as possible.  A BBC camera crew came to do an interview for Newsround, there was a general flurry of media activity and fundraising went into overdrive. 

My own role, supporting Outreach, may not at first, seem all that relevant to providing disaster relief around the world but as a volunteer, like all Oxfam Outreachers, I know that every hour I spend working for Oxfam saves money on staff costs.  The money I save Oxfam can then go towards disaster relief supplies.  Even on a minimum wage rate, I estimate I’ve already saved Oxfam hundreds of pounds – that’s an awful lot of water buckets.  Simply providing access to clean water saves hundreds of lives in situations like Haiti.

Water distribution in Haiti

Outreachers do fantastic work by getting the word out there about Oxfam’s campaigns and they can gain campaigning skills and valuable work experience.  But every hour they spend getting signatures on petitions and talking to people about what we do also helps Oxfam spend more of its hard earned money on the people that need it most – just one of the reasons I like being involved.