Make a Smile is a national student-led charity. Make a Smile believes all children deserve a childhood and understand that illness, disability, or deprivation can make this very difficult for some children. Our goal is to help these children enjoy their childhood. We endeavor to be professional, forward-thinking, and well trained but hold at the forefront of our practice that fun is the number one priority for both children and volunteers. We do this by typically visiting children dressed as popular children characters in the local area to help them briefly forget about their suffering. We are Make a Smile Bristol and we bring smiles to the children of Bristol and South Glouchester area working in collaboration with Bristol University.
We bring smiles to children by dressing up as their favourite fictional characters - Disney, Pixar, Marvel, you name it! Visiting magical places may be difficult for these children so we bring the magic to them. We have a number of costumes available in our communal wardrobe so you will not be required to have your own.
Volunteers will need to complete mandatory training on working with children, character studies, and safeguarding before attending events. We also provide a number of optional training sessions, allowing our volunteers to expand their skillset and interact better with all children.
We offer training in Working with Children, Character Studies, British Sign Language, Autism Awareness, Makaton, Non-Verbal Communication, Improvisation, and more. We also offer a range of socials, photoshoots, and fundraisers so we can improve our wardrobe and show off our lovely costumes!
If dressing up isn't the perfect fit for you, we have other roles that won't require you to.
Character
Magic Maker
Imagineer
We hope to see lots of you at our events!
To sign up you will need to register on the SU website as well as creating an account to log in to the Make a Smile dashboard on their website. The reason for this is to ensure you are covered by insurance, we have permission to store your details on the Make a Smile database and send you information about upcoming events. Any questions contact us using the below details.
Check our website for more information information! https://makeasmile.org.uk/
or contact us on the below details:
Email: Bristol@makeasmile.org.uk
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Make-a-Smile-Bristol-105372671036054
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/makeasmilebristol