RSVP is part of the charity CSV. RSVP encourages the growing number of people aged 50 and above to share their energy and experience and become volunteers. Across the UK, RSVP has over 14,250 volunteers who are making their communities better places to live by giving their time, commitment and skills to help others and themselves.

RSVP is involved in over 400 wide ranging activities including schools support, primary care help, befriending and conservation projects. RSVP works in partnership with community organisations, charities, and local and national governments across the UK, to promote the role of volunteers in managing local activities and services for older people.

RSVP Wales and the Beth Johnson Foundation’s Centre for Intergenerational Practice are working in partnership to deliver intergenerational work across Wales. Announcing this, the Welsh Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, Gwenda Thomas, said, “These two organisations will collaborate on supporting the development of intergenerational work in Wales focusing particularly on supporting local authorities.” RSVP Wales is actively delivering the work of the partnership, and RSVP Wales Director Barbara Locke has emphasised that the support offered will be based firmly on practical evidence and learning from RSVP Wales’s well established intergenerational projects.

RSVP is developing further work with the Beth Johnson Foundation and to support this partnership the RSVP England Director, Karen Vickers, is co-located with the Foundation at their offices in Stoke-on-Trent.

The unique factor about RSVP is that the volunteers are the active people, responding to local needs and developing self managed projects. This is different from many older people’s charities who see older people as the beneficiaries, not the deliverers, managers and innovators of services. In RSVP, the volunteers manage and support the projects, and there is only one member of staff for every 530 volunteers.

RSVP (Retired and Senior Volunteers Programme) can be reached on:
Telephone – 020 7643 1385
Website – www.csv-rsvp.org.uk or via www.csv.org.uk
E-mail – rsvpinfo@csv.org.uk

RSVP