Be a New Year CAB volunteer in 2008

PRESS RELEASE

Another new year, and for many people the time for a new start, a resolution to try something new and gain new skills and experience.

Volunteering for your local Citizens Advice Bureau in 2008 will tick all these objectives.

Over 80 per cent of all frontline CAB workers are in fact trained volunteers, and because people move on the service always needs more.

“So many Scots have found it one of the most interesting and worthwhile moves they ever made,” said Kaliani Lyle, chief executive of bureaux umbrella body Citizens Advice Scotland.

CAB advisers help the public with problems on anything from debt and welfare benefits, to employment rights and nuisance neighbours.  Last year in Scotland, they won over £55m for clients in unclaimed benefits and other entitlements.

“Trained volunteers have always been the life’s blood of our service,” points out Ms Lyle, “ordinary people who devote just a few hours of their time each week to helping others in their local community.

“It could be helping someone find a way out of a nightmare-level of debt, or just helping them find out how to complain about a faulty kettle.”

What kind of person becomes a CAB volunteer?  All kinds, insists Ms Lyle.  “We have people of all ages and backgrounds working in bureaux.  Retired people, people in work, between jobs, students, house parents.

“You don’t need to have lots of experience or prior knowledge because our training programme is very comprehensive.  But you do need to be a good listener, non-judgemental, able to keep a confidence and to do basic arithmetic.

“It’s the kind of volunteer-work where you never know what query or problem you are going to deal with next.  And it’s very sociable.

“2008 could be the year that you become a CAB volunteer!”

If you’d like to find out more about becoming a CAB volunteer, drop into your local CAB or click on the ‘Be a volunteer’ button on this website (left).