Participate in Long-term Social Impact with Impact:24

Want to make a difference and at the same time give your CV added value? Take part in a project that will do both of those and more.

As a third-year student, I was looking for opportunities to gain experience and came across the SHoKE Community (Students at the Heart of Knowledge and Exchange). I decided to join and applied for one of their programmes, Impact:24, and have never looked back.

Creating a Social Impact

Impact:24 is literally a 24-hour social initiative that allows students to participate in real-life problem-solving with organisations outside ARU. Students are put into teams of varying courses and backgrounds tackling a real-life social challenge that needs multiple views, aspects, and creative ideas.

These ideas and solutions help contribute to the long-term societal and sustainable goals that these external organisations aim to achieve. You will gain insight and experience working for businesses that encourage social action. This challenge will have you participate in a short-term project that will benefit a long-term social goal. You will gain recognition and connect with these organisations and businesses.

You will really be involved with their social influence and will help expand their knowledge into how to better support local communities, as well as inspire more people to get involved with the social action!

Growth and Personal Development

Impact:24 is a wonderful opportunity to build and enhance your personal development. Whether it is to build confidence to pitch and present in front of a crowd, or to apply yourself in topics that take you out of your comfort zone and into a new horizon.

Through my experience, I had to learn how to be understanding of others’ concerns when working on a group project. There is a balance between the individual work you put into a project and the contribution of others, and that had to be communicated beforehand to equally distribute participation. With an opportunity to be working with unique individuals on a great and important topic, this challenge pushed me out of the box, both socially and artistically!

All under 24 Hours

We understand that 24 hours is such a brief time to make a perfect presentation. However, we are not looking for perfect, we are looking for the personal development and knowledge exchange that is encouraged from this challenge.

From my personal experience through Impact:24, my team members and I supported each other in researching information and preparing a presentation. We were told not to be working on the project for the entire 24 hours, and to take our personal breaks when needed. And so, my team members and I made our workload as flexible for everyone as we could. When presenting, one of our members had classes at the time, so we made sure to record them earlier to include them in put presentation and credit their work.

This challenge set an environment that requires strong teamwork and collaboration, for there were lots to do in under 24 hours. The limited time made the challenge interesting and fun to work with!

Sign up now! The challenge takes place from 25 - 26 May, For more information please visit What is Impact:24?, to sign up on Handshake (joinhandshake.co.uk) or email us at [email protected] for any queries!

By Jericho Padrinao, BSc (Hons) Business Management

Our Employability Service works with students throughout their time at ARU and after they graduate. The Service offers careers advice, online resources, and help with job searches, applications and interview preparation. Our Employability & Careers Advisers may mention some of these resources and services in their blogs, to give you an idea of the careers support that's on offer at ARU. Some of these resources sit behind a log in and can only be accessed by current students.