London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Responding to the global need created by the pandemic, and requests from our alumni to get involved, network, develop their skills and give back to LSHTM and the world, we launched an innovative, new volunteer hub. LSHTM gave alumni the opportunity to mentor students or become "student buddies" to offer friendship and emotional support.

Alumni, staff and students were recruited to volunteer for an exciting crowdsourcing, rapid data project to use their expertise to tackle the global pandemic and build a database of every COVID-19 intervention globally for the World Health Organization.

Students and alumni also volunteered to interview alumni involved in the pandemic response for our COVID-19 stories series.

Volunteers fed back the benefits to them personally, from CPD to helping their mental health during the pandemic. Volunteers said the projects provided them with structure and meaning in a tough time.  

The HEIST judges commented: "This was an incredibly well-presented entry, highlighting SMART objectives and a superb ROI. Over 4,000 hours of work put in by Alumni and volunteers resulted in a standout scheme with enormous impact on the university, demonstrating that universities matter to society. Well done, The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine."

Head of Alumni Relations and Regular Giving Alice Perry said: "We are so grateful to our amazing volunteers. We were overwhelmed by their amazing response. The dedication of the LSHTM community and the impact of our alumni around the world is just incredible." 

Find out how you can get involved and further information about our mentoring schemes. Sign up to our new networking platform LSHTM Connect.