Adam co-founded Student Hubs in order to create a culture shift in UK universities, creating an enabling environment for students to become active local and global citizens – where civic engagement is the norm, not the exception. His work over the last year has resulted in increased student engagement with social issues, and increased student volunteering. This has had important community benefits now, but will also lead these students to become agents of change in the future.
In October 2008, Adam took a year out from his degree to oversee the expansion of the Hub to a further 3 universities and took on full time members of staff. He received a stipend to fund his living expenses and volunteered for an additional 30 to 40 hours of week and dedicated a further 2.5 days and many weekends and evenings.
Adam oversaw several large events including the Oxford Forum for International Development (the UK’s leading student conference on development issues held over 2 days with 360 students and 30 speakers) and the Oxford Social Enterprise Forum, the UK’s first student conference on social entrepreneurship, with 200 attendees. He also launched the ‘Hive Oxford’, a managed workspace for small and start-up charities and social enterprises in partnership with the Ethical Property Company.
Laura Higgins, a fellow student at Oxford University said:
“I have been continually struck by Adam’s level of commitment to Student Hubs and his dedication to succeed; I have already experienced the change in student attitudes towards volunteering. Thanks to Adam’s tireless work, the charitable ‘scene’ has changed beyond recognition.”
Many students have also been inspired by Adam on a personal level: he was voted one of the ‘Top 50 Influential People in Oxford’ in a poll run by a student newspaper, ‘The Oxford Student’. Aside from the Student Hub, Adam has also launched a new project as part of Student Hubs to inspire students to seek employment in ethical careers. In its first year, the project placed 25 students on 4 to 8 week work placements with charities and social enterprises. This has had important community benefits and will also encourage students to be agents of change in the future. Student Hubs has also grown over this period of time and has a national membership of over 8,500 students and 80 student groups.
Adam has overseen various other charitable activities and events all of which are beneficial to the Oxford and the wider university community. Through his work with Student Hubs he has reached out to a dormant network of students and has actively engaged them and raised awareness on ethical and social issues.
[...] Adam Grodecki will Join Lord MacDonald for a tour of the House of Lords, followed by afternoon tea. [...]