Browse Opportunities

Drawing on history, criminology, and law, this research project will transform understandings of crime and its history by capturing the first large-scale data on the life histories and offending patterns of Australian criminals across a period extending from the end of the convict era to the beginning of the Second World War.

How did these changing socio-historic contexts and the turbulent events they encompassed affect individual involvement in criminal offending? Are the people revealed by the records the sorts of characters that the public expects? Or will there be surprises?

The goal of this project is to preserve the work of early astronomers. Many of these astronomers made great strides not only in the field of astronomy but also in gender equality. By understanding the way that the universe looked in the late 1800s/early 1900s, we can understand how the universe has changed and how our understanding of astronomy has developed.

Project PHaEDRA is an initiative by the Wolbach Library at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. PHaEDRA stands for Preserving Harvard’s Early Data and Research in Astronomy. The goal of the project is to catalog, digitize, transcribe, and create metadata for over 2,500 notebooks produced by early 20th-century women computers at the Harvard College Observatory. These women made advancements and discoveries in the field of astronomy, many of which are still used today. We hope that this project will make this remarkable set of items accessible in the future. Modern researchers will be able to connect these notebooks with the physical glass plate photographs that the astronomers used to make their discoveries.

There are many ways to get involved in Post Pals and it couldn’t be easier! In less than 5 minutes you can make a child smile… and for some of the children it might be their only smile that day.

Sending post – You can send post from anywhere in the world, no matter how old or young you are. You are welcome to send something as a one off or on a regular basis. You don’t need to register, just go to ‘Find Pals’, read through the current children’s pages (we also send post to some siblings of memorial Pals) and pick a child. You can send a hand written card/note, make one or order one from sites like MoonPig and Funky Pigeon, you can also send a gift (again this could be a bought one or handmade). Pop it in the post to the address on the child’s page and know that you have made a child smile!

A Dementia Friend is somebody that learns about dementia so they can help their community. Too many people affected by dementia feel that society fails to understand the condition they live with. Dementia Friends help by raising awareness and understanding so that people living with dementia can continue to live in the way they want.

Be My Eyes is a free mobile app with one main goal: to make the world more accessible for blind and low-vision people. The app connects blind and low-vision individuals with sighted volunteers and companies from all over the world through a live video call.

Be My Eyes is a free app that connects blind and low-vision people with sighted volunteers and company representatives for visual assistance through a live video call.

Download the app here; https://www.bemyeyes.com/

You can watch videos to help us learn about chimps and humans.
For this project, we have collected nearly 7,000 hours of footage, reflecting various chimpanzee habitats, from camera traps in 15 countries across Africa. (We are also collecting a wide variety of organic samples from these sites, such as feces, hair, and plant matter, and information on the ecology and environment of each habitat.) By scanning the videos from these traps and identifying the types of species and activity that you see, you’ll help us to understand the lives of these apes—their behaviours, relationships, and environments—and to extrapolate new ideas about human origins.

In a relatively short period, the attributes of plastic initially perceived to be positive characteristics - convenience and longevity - have shifted to pose a widespread environmental problem. Within the marine context, millions of tonnes of plastic enter our oceans annually. The economic cost to marine natural capital alone is estimated to range from $3300–$33,000 per ton of plastic per year.

Where all of you can help?
Here is where we need YOUR valuable help to classify images contain marine litter. You will help us create a dataset for our deep learning algorithms and help our team to map marine litter accumulation. The more images you classify, the better the machine learning algorithms get.

As you play Freerice and answer the questions right, advertisements appear on your screen. When you see one of these advertisements, you trigger a financial payment to the World Food Programme (WFP) to support its work saving and changing lives around the world.

In the game, these payments are represented via grains of rice. The amount of money generated when you see an advertisement can vary but is roughly equivalent to what the World Food Programme spends to purchase 10 grains of rice.

By playing, you are generating the money that pays for this rice. This money is used for many types of assistance — not just rice — depending on where needs are greatest. Regardless of the type of assistance, you can be sure that 100% of all funds generated on Freerice go to the World Food Programme, and 93.5% of every payment received by the World Food Programme goes directly towards helping children and their families. Freerice does not earn or keep any money it raises.

https://freerice.com/categories/english-vocabulary

We all know how dangerous a preterm birth is for babies. The weight of most of them is around 500g (that’s half a bag of sugar or 5 standard chocolate bars!!!), and it means their systems are not fully developed. Feeling the closeness of parents has a significant effect on their baby’s recovery and growth.

However, parents are not able to hold their children close to their bodies all the time.

When a baby arrives unexpectedly the parent’s world stops to focus on the little one. There are so many things to sort out that are important and part of everyday life. It is full-on, and parents need a break too.

A short break to catch their breath and to have a little rest so they can carry on looking after their little bundle.

And here is where the octopuses come in very handy!! These little octopuses make babies, and their parents feel calmer and safer. The babies play with their tentacles as if it is their mother’s umbilical cord.

At the same time, parents can have the deserved little break, knowing their tiny precious ones feel more safe and calm with the tentacles in their little hands instead of pulling those life-saving tubes and cables out.

This charity project first started in Denmark and then extended to Spain, Ukraine and continued in Poland, UK, and more recently Austria.

Are you interested in empowering young people to learn new skills? Do you want to help provide fantastic, confidence-building opportunities? 

Central Yorkshire Scouts are looking for people like you to help run their Scout Groups. You'll help plan and run activities, support young people as they grow up, and be a role model for them. You can choose which age group you volunteer with. We have opportunities to work with:

• Squirrel Scouts (4-5 years)
• Beaver Scouts (6-8 years)
• Cub Scouts (8-10.5 years)
• Scouts (10.5 - 14 years)
• Explorer Scouts (14-17 years)

Scouting is the UK's biggest co-educational youth organisation. At Central Yorkshire Scouts, we offer young people aged 6-17 from Leeds and Wakefield fun and challenging activities, unique experiences and the chance to help others in the community. We help children and adults reach their full potential. 

Lend a hand for as little or as much time as you can spare and we promise you'll get more out than you put in. We provide full training to help you feel confident in your volunteering. It looks great on your CV and is a fun way to give back to the Leeds community. We have opportunities all over Leeds on every night of the week so we will be able to find one that fits your schedule. 

Interested? Apply through this form and we will get in touch to arrange a time for you to give it a go. 

Tasks and Responsibilities

- Delivering a safe and enjoyable programme of activities
- Organising nights away experiences for young people
- Working with other adults to run meetings
- Maintaining records of young peoples' details and attendance