Established as a Council of Social Service in 1967, in 1996 the organisation became a charitable company ltd by guarantee, Voluntary Action Barra and Vatersay. Core funding from The Scottish Government allows us to develop new services, establish innovative projects and provide services and support to Community organisations throughout the island while also representing the Voluntary Sector at Western Isles and Highlands and Islands ensuring that remote and rural communities needs are being recognised.

 

 

Voluntary Action Barra and Vatersay provides the following services

•           Training

•           Community Newspaper – Guth Bharraidh

•           Community Web site – isleofbarra.com

•           Community Transport – Bus Bharraigh

•           Community Radio – Barra community Radio ……

•           Support and advice for new and existing community groups

 

Along with Councils of Voluntary Service (Lewis Harris and Uist), in the Western Isles in we have established the Western Isles Citizens Advice Bureau and the Western Isles Volunteer Centre. We work in close partnership with other voluntary sector groups and support new and evolving services in the area of Care in the Community, community Transport, community and Statutory Partnership working. High on the agenda is the Community Health Partnerships and Shared Services Development.

 

Training We co-ordinate a wide range of training opportunities for community groups eg first aid at Work (Basic and four day) for all organisations in the community; to support SVQ in Care for Cobhair Bharraigh (Day Care and home Support ); computerised Accounting for Social enterprises; Basic Health and safety, Manual Handling Etc; Management and committee responsibilities; 

 

For Community Radio: For training, and equipment and licences to operate community radio, initially using the internet and the website to broad cast programmes but aiming to develop the service to link in with Western Isles community radio such as Isles FM.

 

For many years Voluntary Action Barra has been running an accessible, door to door transport scheme to meet the needs of community Care organisations, youth clubs youth cafes and evening transport. This transport scheme is complimentary to the Public Bus services and provides a flexible accessible approach to transport needs in a small island community.

 

 

We now operate two vehicles, a Mercedes sprinter with tail lift and took delivery of the low floor Tucana in May 2008. These vehicles provide day and evening services to the community. Employing two to four people, we provide transport and escorts to Day Care for Alzheimer’s and frail elderly ( Cobhair Bharraigh), transport for day care to St Brendan’s Home for Social Work Dept, Transport for the OFTTI project for clients with special needs and for the Adult learners. We provide pensioners shopping and trips out, Pensioners Club. We also provide transport for Youth Activities, the Youth Café, the youth Club, social events for all ages, Dances and discos. Transport is also provided for evening classes and we are seeking to develop transport for after school activities.