This post is just one of many that we’re publishing this week to celebrate Refugee Week 2016. We’ll be looking at some of the amazing people that we get to work with here at CARAS, and the incredible contributions that they bring to our society.
People come to community organisations looking for support, social networks, and stability. Through time these people become more resilient, learn to cope with day to day situations, and start to navigate complex systems much easier. That is when the need to be involved in the community organisation lessens, however, the desire to stay in touch with the community remains. That is when different ways of engagements emerge. Many people want to give back to the community and choose volunteering as one of the ways to contribute to betterment of the lives of marginalised groups.
At CARAS we have a group of people of different ages, who are willing to give their precious time outside college or family time hours to help others. One of them is Fadumo.
She came to this country with her family five years ago. A family of mum, dad and 7 siblings had a difficult time getting involved with the community, so a school of one of the siblings referred Fadumo’s family to CARAS for various needs: advocacy, English and children activities. Fadumo, being in Year 9, was taken into CARAS youth club. Shy with low levels of English at the beginning, Fadumo’s confidence grew by day. In a year she has received an award from peers in club for being the friendliest and most supportive. After two years there, Fadumo felt that she no longer needed to attend the club weekly anymore: her English was near to that of native speaker’s, she was outspoken and had lots of friends in the club and school.
After speaking to a club coordinator, Fadumo decided to become a young volunteer: to participate in a programme which promotes beneficiaries volunteering in different projects. After training, Fadumo became a volunteer for our After School Club. She would not miss a week of activities. She would accompany children to trips, would find fun and engaging activities for them to do and would always be that smiling face in child’s day. Her confidence grew, and so did her future dreams: Fadumo is now studying to be Early Years Educator and has further ambitions to become a teacher!
