Your time can be a great gift

Volunteer work is something that almost all of us are able to do. And when you make room in your life to help other people, the rewards you can get are more valuable than money, says Nick Jackson

Obeten, 44, blacked out. When he came to, he was paralysed. After having difficulty finding work because of his disability, he now volunteers for Disability Action in Barnet (DabB) and Motorsport Endeavour, a charity organising motorsports for the disabled.

"Before I went to DabB a year ago I was doing nothing with my time and getting depressed," he says. "Now I'm very active and I have the fulfilment you get from helping people."

Obeten is one of 23 million Brits who volunteer each year in the UK - proof that time is the one thing that everyone can afford to give. And if there was ever a truly democratic movement in Britain, it has to be volunteering, with millions of people every week helping to improve the lives of their neighbours.

But the size and diversity of that contribution and the fact that it is, by its very nature, amateur can mean that voluntary work is taken for granted. To counter this, the Government has named 2005 the year of the volunteer.

It's never too soon to get involved. Hannah Scotten, 18, was suffering those all too familiar teen blues after dropping out of school in the sixth form. "I didn't know what I wanted to do, I just knew that the courses at college weren't for me," she says. Instead of running off to the circus or Goa, Scotten took up volunteering. "I wanted to see a bit of life and achieve something worthwhile," she says.

The Student Independent Living Project (SILP) allowed her to do both. She provides personal, academic and social support to disabled university students, from doing their cooking to helping them take notes in lectures. In turn, Scotten is given a roof over her head and an allowance, giving her independence while she has been helping others achieve it. "It's been amazing," she says. "I'd love to do social care as a job, and this year has given me the confidence to pursue it as a career."

As well as providing the foundation of a career, volunteering can also provide a respite from the one you've got. Few careers are more frenetic than Laura Gibb's. Gibb, 24, is assistant private secretary to Home Office minister Fiona McTaggart, but even in the hurly-burly of a ministerial office there are moments of calm, and in April, with her political masters off electioneering, Gibb decided to see another side of public service. While she and her colleague Nana Acquah recruited round the water cooler, Community Service Volunteers (CSV) told her what was on offer in her local area and helped to organise it.

"CSV were fantastic, really encouraging and helpful," she says. "If people feel they want to volunteer but don't know where to start, CSV's there to help you."

Starting with a long lunch helping at the local soup kitchen, Gibb and her colleagues went on to spend a day rebuilding an adventure playground in Lambeth, and then took on a fun run to raise money for Breast Cancer. "Everybody really enjoyed it," says Gibb. "And it was nice as a team-building exercise; normally people wouldn't get a chance to spend time together in that way."

Employee volunteering like Gibb's is a growing trend, with 10 government departments taking it up this year. Perhaps more surprising than the interest shown by public-sector employers, though, is that of profit-chasing corporate giants such as PricewaterhouseCooper. If they think it's good for business, you can be sure it is. "It's not just about giving something back to the community, it's a two-way street," says David Adair, community affairs manager for the firm. According to Adair, benefits include greater confidence, better team work, and higher morale and productivity. "People come back refreshed, and they see things from a different perspective."

A different perspective on things was exactly what Bridget Atherton, 40, was looking for. "You can live a very cosseted life," she says. "But there's a whole world out there."

For the past year, Atherton, a global marketing and communications manager at PricewaterhouseCooper, has been mentoring a girl doing her GCSEs at a local school, visiting her two afternoons a month and helping her to plan her revision and to work out what she wants to do after leaving school and how to achieve it.

Atherton doesn't have any children of her own and was daunted at first. She admits on occasion to calling her teenage niece for advice, but came to enjoy it.

"It was a really positive experience and the girl I was mentoring was great," she says. "Just because you don't work for a charity doesn't mean you don't have anything to offer."

And, of course, that's the point. The glory of volunteering is that there's something for everyone; the only thing you need is time. In our workaholic, youth-crazed days, it can sometimes seem like once you've stopped paying your national insurance, you're no longer able to contribute. But just because you have retired, it doesn't mean that you are redundant, as Geoff Moody, 64, proved when he got involved with the Community Service Volunteers' Retired and Senior Volunteer Programme.

In 1998, Moody, a retired policeman, set up a chauffeur service running errands for housebound and disabled people and getting them to and from hospitals and clinics. In seven years Moody estimates he has helped 15,000 people. GPs prescribe the service to patients, who pay a nominal fee to the drivers, of £1 for example, to pick up a prescription. For many in the community, it's an invaluable service.

But it's not just the recipients who feel the benefits. As with all volunteers, Moody knows how good it is to do good. "It's definitely given me a sense of purpose," he says. "Patients will stop the wife in the street and say thanks for the help I've given them. Little things like that, the appreciation we get, show it's worthwhile."

How to defy misfortune or adversity by making a difference

Debbie Barrow, 47, is a volunteer with the Partners of Prisoners and Family Support Group in Manchester

I had a 19-year-old son who ended up in prison and committed suicide there in January 2002. After that, I completely lost direction. I didn't work for a while, I didn't know what to do. Then I started volunteering with the Partners of Prisoners and Family Support Group, a charity supporting families of prisoners in Manchester. We'd go in and talk to boys about the effect their time in prison had on their families. I talked about how hard it was for me to cope, emotionally and financially. And we'd get them to talk about how they'd like things to be in future. A lot of them have family problems: because of their offending, their families might have had enough. So we encourage them to build bridges. It's so important for them to keep that structure there for when they are released. If they don't have stability, the reoffending rate is unbelievable. Since I got involved in this, 18 months ago, I've gone to college and done an Access course, and next month I'm going to Salford University to study social work. It's all completely new; I used to work in retail management and I never thought I'd go to university. And this summer, I'm doing paid work in a Manchester prison as a family link worker, working in the visiting hall and on the wings with offenders.

Anyone who's been through anything in their lives - not necessarily as traumatic as I have - should do this. I have got so much back from it. Every day, I feel that I've done something useful. I have helped other people and other families, and young offenders who are quite depressed. Now I wake up in the morning and think: "I'm glad to be here."