The 450,000 reports which vividly illustrate over 50 years of voluntary work of a million plus women and men have just been awarded special status by the UN.

The WVS/WRVS narrative reports, held in the WRVS’s Archive and Heritage Collection, are among ten items and collections (the only one not from a national or public collection) to be the first ever entries on the UNESCO UK Memory of the World Register. 

The reports were written from 1939 to 1992 by WRVS volunteers from every one of the over 2000 WRVS centres which once covered the country.  They record in detail the dedication and service of these local volunteers and chart the organisations significant role on the home front in World War Two and its contribution after the war as one of the leading providers of social care.

The UNESCO Secretary General Harry Reeves OBE describes the ten documents awarded the status as “...some of the UK’s most exceptional, but lesser known documentary riches”. 

Find out more by reading about the WVS/WRVS narrative reports and see our inscription on the UNESCO online register.   

If you are a member of the press and have a media enquiry or would like to speak with a WRVS representative, please contact Ruth Taylor on 07714 898574.  For all other enquiries please contact us.  

Image: Our founder Lady Reading in the 1960s surrounded by narrative reports.