Pembroke College leads the way in volunteering for Insight Outreach

Published 8th April 2021

This edition of the Kit Smart Blog has been guest-written by Akshar Abhyankar, who writes about how his volunteering work with Insight Outreach led him to set up a Cambridge hub - and how Pembroke students are leadingthe way! Akshar is a second-year undergraduate, reading History and Modern Languages.

It has now been more than a year since the Prime Minister announced the first round of COVID-19 restrictions on daily life. Since then, it’s certainly been a struggle to stay positive through the onslaught of news updates, press conferences, and time away from Cambridge. Despite almost every aspect of our lives being affected by the pandemic, one constant source of positivity in my life has been volunteering with Insight Outreach (IO), a social mobility charity whose flagship programme, the Oxbridge Mentoring Scheme (OMS), aims to boost the application and success rates of students from state-educated, minority ethnic, and low socio-economic backgrounds.

My motivation for volunteering for IO fundamentally stems from the charity’s vision and mission. I was lucky enough to gain a place on the OMS way back in 2018, and since then I have completed internships in impact analysis and project management. However, as a former mentee on the OMS who secured a place at Cambridge, I felt that the impact of IO could be amplified by greater representation and engagement on the ground at the  university itself. After pitching the idea to IO, I co-founded the Insight Outreach Cambridge Hub (IOCH) with András Droppa, a first-year mathematician from Robinson College, and we’ve already succeeded in boosting the charity’s volunteer base and organised a webinar on careers in the charity sector. Since 2018, Insight Outreach has become an incredibly important part of my university life, and I am really excited to share Pembroke students’ engagement with the charity.

Amongst all of the Oxbridge student mentors who volunteered as mentors this year, 23% come from Pembroke College, Cambridge alone. That means that 35% of all mentors from Cambridge University come from Pembroke – more importantly, if you added up the mentors from Pembroke College, Cambridge and Pembroke College, Oxford, 94% would come from Cambridge! From HSPS to Computer Science, Medicine to Land Economy, Pembroke students have actively taken up mentoring not only as a means of tackling the inequality and challenges in higher education faced by students from underrepresented backgrounds but also improving themselves through the power of mentoring.

Of course, these are just statistics, but I think they reveal something much more important. On the one hand, it shows precisely what kind of student community exists at Pembroke College: a socially aware and enthusiastic group of incredibly supportive students from all walks of life, and one I’m proud to be a part of.

On the other hand, it is also testament to Insight Outreach’s incredible vision in working towards building a genuinely equal society and ensuring students can access opportunities and experiences based on their commitment and talent and not their background. It’s this vision that is so important to me and, I’m sure, equally as important for everyone else who volunteers for the charity.

At the IO Cambridge Hub, we’re about to launch a new event initiative with our sister Hub at Oxford called The Insight Network to help our amazing student volunteers at Oxbridge connect with each other, share advice, and build friendships. We’re also planning a host of access and social events down the line.

If you’re interested in boosting these Pembroke statistics even more, take a look here, or send an email to info@insightoutreach.org to explore other ways of volunteering.

Image: Akshar Abhyankar (copyright: Akshar Abhyankar)