Volunteer as a Bags of Taste Cooking mentor

• Mentoring takes place on Whatsapp or the phone so you’ll need to be comfortable with one of these communication methods
• All interactions with course participants will  only take place via WhatsApp.
• You’ll need between a minimum of two to three hours over a two week period to support students on our Mentored home cooking course.
• Your ongoing commitment is flexible. You can sign up for as many courses as you like and take a break between them. Many of our current mentors fit this around their full time work.
• Interactions with students are typically only a few minutes long, so we ask that you respond to messages within a few hours and are available primarily in the evenings and weekends, even if it’s just to check in for a brief period

Benefits to volunteer

• Hugely rewarding role, and we’ll provide full training and ongoing support to ensure you feel confident every step of the way.
• Volunteers are key to everything we do, and have helped change thousands of participants’ lives. 
•  make a life-changing difference to people in food poverty

• The main skills you’ll need are empathy and a calm consistent manner. It’s great if you enjoy cooking but not essential
• You’ll need to be a people person and a great communicator. One of the barriers for people is confidence so building a supportive relationship is key. Your role is            to be  a guide and help, cajole, encourage and inspire
• We’ll provide all the training and support you need to successfully mentor students through the course.
• Every volunteer is allocated with a course co-ordinator. Our course co-ordinators are always in the group with you so you can always ask for help if you need it
• You need to be 18+