| Good morning. |
| My name's Lucy Crittenden, |
| and I'm the Director of Operations for an organisation that arranges volunteering in this part of the country. |
| I'm hoping I can persuade one or two of you to become volunteers yourselves. |
| Let me start by briefly explaining what we mean by volunteering. |
| Volunteers are teenagers and adults who choose to spend some time, unpaid, helping other people in some way. |
| Most volunteers devote two or three hours to this every week, while a few do much more. |
| The people they help may have physical or behavioural difficulties, for example. |
| Volunteers can do all sorts of things, depending on their own abilities and interests. |
| If they're supporting a family that's struggling, for example, |
| they may be able to give them tips on cooking, |
| or recommend how to plan their budget |
| or how to shop sensibly on their income. |
| They might even do some painting or wallpapering, |
| perhaps alongside any members of the family who are able to do it. |
| Or even do some babysitting so that parents can go out for a while. |
| The benefit from volunteering isn't only for the people being helped. |
| Volunteers also gain from it: |
| they're using their skills to cope with somebody's mental or physical ill health, |
| and volunteering may be a valuable element of their CV when they're applying for jobs: |
| employers usually look favourably on someone who's given up time to help others. |
| Significantly, most volunteers feel that what they're doing gives them a purpose in their lives. |
| And in my opinion, they're lucky in that respect, |
| as many people don't have that feeling. |
| Now I'd like to tell you what some of our volunteers have said about what they do, |
| to give you an idea of the range of ways in which they can help people. |
| Habib supports an elderly lady who's beginning to show signs of dementia. |
| Once a week they, along with other elderly people, go to the local community centre, |
| where a group of people come in and sing. |
| The songs take the listeners back to their youth, |
| and for a little while they can forget the difficulties that they face now. |
| Our volunteer Consuela is an amazing woman. |
| She has difficulty walking herself, but she doesn't let that stop her. |
| She helps a couple of people with similar difficulties, |
| who had almost stopped walking altogether. |
| By using herself as an example, |
| Consuela encourages them to walk more and more. |
| Minh visits a young man who lives alone and can't leave his home on his own, |
| so he hardly ever saw anyone. |
| But together they go out to the cinema, |
| or to see friends the young man hadn't been able to visit for a long time. |
| Tanya visits an elderly woman once a week. |
| When the woman found out that Tanya is a professional dressmaker, she got interested. |
| Tanya showed her some soft toys she'd made, |
| and the woman decided to try it herself. |
| And now she really enjoys it, and spends hours making toys. |
| They're not perhaps up to Tanya's standard yet, |
| but she gains a lot of pleasure from doing it. |
| Alexei is a volunteer with a family that faces a number of difficulties. |
| By calmly talking over possible solutions with family members, |
| he's helping them to realise that they aren't helpless, |
| and that they can do something themselves to improve their situation. |
| This has been great for their self-esteem. |
| And the last volunteer I'll mention, though there are plenty more, is Juba. |
| She volunteers with a teenage girl with learning difficulties, |
| who wasn't very good at talking to other people. |
| Juba's worked very patiently with her, |
| and now the girl is far better at expressing herself, |
| and at understanding other people. |
| OK, I hope that's given you an idea of what volunteering is all about. |
| Now I'd like... |