Go raibh maith agaibh! (Thank you!)
Back to all
Zibiah Loakthar, our Cuimhne Champions Coordinator reflects,
Go raibh maith agaibh (thank you) this Volunteers’ Week to all our Cuimhne Champions helping make communities friendly, inclusive and welcoming places for people living with memory loss and their families.
We very often do things to help others without thinking about it. Each of us can make a difference to our world and the people about us without doing anything big and grand.
Just stopping to acknowledge someone or have a chat has the potential to make a huge difference to that person’s day. In some ways, the important thing is not to spend ages thinking about what we might like to do but to get on with doing it!
Oscar Wilde
Dublin–born writer Oscar Wilde observes, ”The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.” Small acts really can make a big difference.car wil
At the same time, thinking about what we are doing, reflecting on our actions, coming together with others to discuss ideas and share different ways of doing things, can be enormously beneficial. We cane ensure that well–intended actions are helpful, and not inadvertently damaging, for others.
We can learn a lot from other volunteers. Learning from each other and other organisations can save our time reinventing wheels! When we volunteer together we can often achieve so much more than when we work separately. Signing up formally as “volunteers” for organisations may help us to be more effective in what we do.
Volunteering often appeals to young people who may be looking to build up skills and experience and gain references to help with applying for jobs or further study.
Older people who have reached retirement may not be looking to build up careers or enhance already golden CVs, but may want to give something back to the community and to help those who are less fortunate than they are.
Nevertheless, older people may still gain from formal volunteering!
Charities with volunteering programmes offer all kinds of support, such as the chance to meet others with similar aims and interests to discuss different ways of doing things. They also create the opportunity to join training and learning programmes that we might never otherwise have imagined could be useful.
Volunteers
Meeting up with other volunteers and discussing the challenges and frustrations, as well as the joys of what we do, can help us avoid “burn–out” and indeed inspire us to take up further actions.
Irish in Britain’s Cuimhne Champions tell us that joining a volunteering programme has enabled them to meet new people, access training, enjoy new learning experiences and be reimbursed for their out of pocket volunteering expenses.
And overwhelmingly, our volunteers remark on the magic secret of volunteering. This is that while we may go into volunteering to help others and make the world a fairer place, once we start we soon discover something. We can gain as much, if not more than we give from the people we meet, the friends we make, the new experiences we have and the new life perspectives we encounter.
Volunteering can help keep us active, involved, connected to our communities. Our own self–confidence, self–esteem, self–respect and mental wellbeing can be hugely bolstered by our sense of being an active member of our community. We can feel able to make a difference in moving a little way towards the realisation of our vision for a fairer world.
That is the real power of volunteering!
Working towards a society that is more inclusive of people with memory loss can certainly be an uphill challenge. Dementia is still something of a taboo topic in our community. There is currently no cure for dementia. It can be a difficult subject to engage with but this does not mean we need turn away from it.
Cuimhne Champions join together in their resolve to promote better quality of life of people living with dementia and reduce loneliness and social isolation too for family members and carers by finding ways to help people remain connected and included within the Irish community in Britain.
Seamus Heaney
Irish poet Seamus Heaney has written, ”Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for”. If you share such conviction and would like to find out more about volunteering as a Cuimhne Champions with Irish in Britain or one of our many Irish in Britain member organisations please do get in touch!
Each of us has so much to give and we may be surprised by what we may gain and learn about ourselves! Why not use this Volunteers Week to get in touch and take action. Drop us a line champions@irishinbritain.org