Volunteering through your mobile

Monday 22 August 2011

A new way to volunteer for Mencap through a mobile phone app

Mencap has launched its first volunteering action on Do Some Good - a mobile phone app hosted by Orange. The app, which can be downloaded for free on iPhones, Blackberry phones and Nokia phones, offers micro-volunteering opportunities that can be completed in a few minutes.

The first Mencap action went live today (Monday 22 August). People can tag places or services in their communities and rate them so that other people can see how accessible they are. The information will be used to build a map of services on the Mencap website.

More actions will be added soon. The information that people submit will be used to help shape Mencap’s campaigns, raise awareness of learning disability issues and show where Mencap needs to provide certain services.

Elizabeth Archer, Mencap’s national programme manager for children and young people, said: "We believe this app will put power back into the hands of people using services. Over the next few months, it will be really interesting to see how people with a learning disability, their families and friends use these actions to inform us about what is most important to them.”

Go to http://dosomegood.orange.co.uk  to find out more and download the app