#1MillionHours: BBC to ally with UK's biggest charities to create hundreds of thousands of volunteers

The scheme will involve partnering with the charities Age UK, Barnardo’s, Cancer Research UK and Oxfam

Ben Cooper, head of BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra (Charlie Forgham Bailey)

The BBC is to form an unprecedented alliance with some of Britain’s biggest charities in an attempt to convert the so-called “selfie generation” into an army of hundreds of thousands of volunteers.

The plan, to be unveiled next week, will seek to persuade 250,000 millennials to each give up eight hours of their time to volunteer work, such as staffing charity shops and fundraising events, aiding cancer victims, refugees and the elderly.

The #1MillionHours scheme will involve BBC Radio1 and 1Xtra partnering with the charities Age UK, Barnardo’s, Cancer Research UK and Oxfam for the whole of 2016. It is highly unusual for the BBC to align itself with outside organisations and promote them on air.

The BBC hopes to expand the idea into a BBC-wide campaign for volunteering across all age groups and working with other organisations from 2017.

Ben Cooper, head of BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra, described the venture as “the biggest social action” project in the network’s 48-year history.

“They are characterised as the ‘selfie generation’ that are only interested in how they look on their mobile phone and don’t enter into conversation because they have their head down looking at a screen,” he said. “But the young people I meet for our outreach work are positive about changing their lives, their friends’ lives and those of their communities.”