“It’s been an honour to be a Kairos volunteer”
One of our amazing volunteers, Shamima, recently completed her time volunteering with Kairos at our Evening Drop-In during her University studies in Coventry. We asked her about her experience, and here’s what she had to say:
“I began volunteering for Kairos in 2017 and the experience has been an absolute pleasure. I’m sad to have to leave such an amazing team and fulfilling work. From my very first day at the introductory training, I was supported and looked after by the Kairos team. They are women who are selfless, caring and passionate about their work. It has been so inspiring to see just how much these women give to support our service users and they really would do whatever they could to help our girls.
On top of that, they are always making sure that you, as a volunteer (whether you’re old or new), are okay and encourage your input into how you think they can improve. I really loved this, because its difficult enough in paid work to feel like you can make suggestions for improvements but in unpaid work, you really think its not your place to tell them what you feel is working or not. Luckily, I can honestly say I did not have a single issue whilst volunteering for Kairos.
So enough about the superheroes that are the Kairos staff! I mentioned before that the work you do as a volunteer is fulfilling, and I really mean that. At first, I did question myself in regards to how I’m making a difference to these girls, when I’m just making them a drink or handing them toiletries and putting clothes in a bag for them. But these girls, when they open up and let you into their world, you realise that the hot drink you just made was the first hot thing they had all day, those clothes you bagged meant they had some nice fresh clothes they could wear instead of the same old things they keep rotating. Another thing about the Drop-In sessions is that you could never tell if it was going to be a busy one or a quiet one. I remember my very first session being busy and thinking ‘wow, so this is exactly how important running these sessions are’. You get girls that just need a drink and some clothes and they’re off, but then you’ll get the girls that have nowhere else to go but the Drop-in, no one else to talk to but you, and no else to turn to but the ladies at Kairos.
Kairos have given me the opportunity to meet some amazing people, grow as a person with an even more open mind and make some really good hot chocolate too! It’s been an honour to be a Kairos volunteer, thank you to everyone for the experience.”
Thank you so much Sham for your kind words! Click here to go to the volunteering page and see if there are any volunteering vacancies open at the moment and you too could start your journey with Kairos!