Carers UK is delighted to have won the LSE Voluntary Organisation of the Year Award for 2023.

Over the past year, Carers UK has been working with the London School of Economics (LSE) Volunteering Centre to engage students with volunteering, both in person at their volunteering fairs and on their online volunteering platform.

As one of three charities nominated by students, we were pleased and privileged to receive this award at the LSE Volunteering Award Ceremony on Wednesday 3 May, as hosted by the LSE Volunteering Centre.

The award recognises our work with LSE students, as well as our continued commitment to promoting volunteering opportunities that support carers. We will be soon taking part in the LSE volunteering scheme for disabled students.

As part of our work with LSE, a group of seven students took part on the Community Engagement Programme and produced a research report on caring and faith based on interviews with 11 carers. They received an award for best consultancy project.

Melanie Crew, Senior Policy and Research Officer at Carers UK, said: “It was a pleasure to work with the students on the carers of faith research project: they demonstrated a great understanding of some of the issues faced by unpaid carers, and produced a helpful report for us recommending how we might support carers of faith in future. The students worked very hard on this project and we were delighted to see them winning an award for this."

We are now looking forward to continuing to work with the LSE Volunteering Centre to encourage more students to volunteer and raise awareness of unpaid carers.

Paola Hanks, Membership and Volunteering Officer at Carers UK, said: "We were grateful and honoured to receive the LSE Voluntary Organisation of the Year Award 2023. We hope LSE students have found the volunteering experience with Carers UK meaningful; their support to unpaid carers has been very valuable in raising awareness of unpaid carers. Their research project has also helped us to understand more about caring and faith. We look forward to continuing working with the LSE Volunteering Centre"