For Volunteers' Week 2025 | 2–8 June
As part of Volunteers’ Week 2025 (2–8 June), we’re shining a spotlight on work that celebrates the contribution of volunteers and explores how volunteering can become more inclusive and accessible to everyone in our communities. This blog shares insight from a project led by Manchester City of Sanctuary in partnership with Macc and Volunteer Centre Manchester, which explores how we can better support people seeking sanctuary to volunteer in sport, movement, and physical activity - the work is supported through the Volunteering Community of Practice hosted by GM Moving.
As part of the research and insight-gathering phase, we’ve been meeting with organisations already working across sport, inclusion, and community wellbeing to understand what’s already happening, what barriers exist, and what support is needed to enable volunteering that is inclusive, meaningful, and safe for people seeking sanctuary.
Alongside this, the project is surfacing some clear patterns around both opportunities and barriers.
For example, many organisations are already working in informal or low-barrier ways that enable participation-but these efforts often go unrecognised or unsupported. Common challenges include travel costs, limited DBS flexibility, language access, and gender-specific cultural factors. At the same time, there are strong examples of good practice emerging, such as cash-first expenses, visual onboarding tools, and trauma-informed induction support.
We’re also beginning to sketch out the kinds of tools and recommendations that might help organisations feel more confident in opening up volunteering opportunities to people seeking sanctuary-whether that’s guidance for hosts, training needs, or models of coordination and brokerage.
As part of the project, a multilingual outreach presentation was recently delivered at a hotel accommodating sanctuary seekers in Manchester. The session-run in partnership with Wheels for All and supported by translated materials provided by DA Languages-offered an accessible introduction to volunteering opportunities in sports and physical activity. It demonstrated how removing practical and linguistic barriers, even at an early engagement stage, can help people feel welcomed and able to contribute.
“This project is really about listening, learning, and trying to shift things a bit. People seeking sanctuary are already contributing to our communities in all kinds of ways-we just don’t always see or support it. Volunteering in sport and movement can be a really powerful route into belonging, connection and confidence, if we remove the barriers and make space for people to lead the way.” - Jack Puller, Volunteering and Active Communities Manager, Macc
If your organisation supports people seeking sanctuary and has experience (or questions) about involving them in volunteering through sport, physical activity, or movement-we’d love to hear from you. You can get in touch by emailing [email protected].