Blog | Middlesbrough Voluntary Development Agency

When you think you know it all, you stop listening to understand!

6 August 2019 - 3:11pm

One of the best parts of working at MVDA is getting to meet lots of great people passionate about making life better for Middlesbrough’s people. I love the ‘cuppa and a natter’ approach and how we get to some really deep issues in the context of a ‘thinking out loud’ discussion. I’m always inspired by what people are doing, often in some of the most challenging circumstances, and this really stirs up my curiosity to really understand what life is like on a day-to-day level for the organisations we work with and the people they support.

All I wanted was something nice to go with a baked potato…

26 July 2019 - 12:17pm

Last night was exceptionally warm; the second warmest day on record in the United Kingdom. I wanted something simple for tea, a baked potato with something nice. The choice was limited at my local Co-op so a went a bit further up the road to a big Sainsbury’s store, but the shelves were oddly empty – all the chilled shelves had been cleared. I thought they were probably just moving the stock around.

Lift the Ban: Campaigning for the Right to Work

19 June 2019 - 11:32am

In this guest blog for Refugee Week, Jen Laws, Campaigns Project Manager for the North East with Asylum Matters, shares some of the realities for people seeking asylum in the UK and why policy change is so important.

Shining a light - what a week!

13 June 2019 - 8:37pm

National Volunteers Week falls on 1 -7th June every year. It is a chance for charities to thank the many amazing people without whom their organisation would not be able to do what they do.

Back to the Future for social prescribing

21 March 2019 - 1:02pm

I feel a bit like Marty McFly having just stepped out of Doc's DeLorean and being transported back to 2014. Scotland voted to stay a member of the United Kingdom in an independent referendum, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace Prize, Friends celebrated its 20th anniversary making me feel very old, Conchita Wurst won Eurovision, Ed Sheeran and ‘thinking out loud’ makes number one twice and we were watching ‘The Theory of Everything’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ at the cinema.