My placement experience...

I am currently doing my 4th month of my volunteering placement, and will finish in September. My placement is in project management and marketing for Dunedin Canmore Housing Association, and this is part of my French Master in Business Management.

The project I am working on is called SHAPE (School Holiday Activities Places Events). Valid during school holidays throughout the year, SHAPE offers generous discounts to a wide range of attractions and activities, including 67 per cent off at Dynamic Earth and two-for-one at the Filmhouse, plus volunteering opportunities at 12 organisations. The booklet has been distributed to 8,500 housing association tenants in Edinburgh.

We used to have two volunteers on this project. Camille Deeny, had already completed negotiations with the organisations taking part, so when I arrived in March, I did the information booklet that comes with the card. I wrote all the text and checked and rechecked the facts. We included a map of the city showing all the locations, and a competition as an incentive to get people out to all the attractions. I also marketed the card through a free newsletter distributed to tenants, and I organised the launch at our tenants’ open day.

Producing the information booklet has provided valuable practical experience in marketing, and the international work experience will strengthen my cv. A big thankyou to Projectscotland who offered me a very professional placement. I managed the project from A to Z, and I’ll finish it by evaluating the feedback from tenants. Making money is not the goal for me. It was finding out how a charitable organisation works and how they deliver projects.

Heloise Lassoudiere
ProjectScotland Volunteer
Dunedin Canmore Housing Association