How a being a youth worker can create heartwarming moments with people

Hello everyone! Hope you're all having a great week so far, whatever you're doing.

Since I have a day to myself, I thought I'd share something that had happened whilst I was helping out at the Challengers Orange Aid event on Saturday. 

On Saturday, (13th of September) I had the privilege to be asked to help out at the 2nd time running annual Challengers' Orange Aid event. 

Me & my friend/colleague were in charge of manning the lego tent for the day, and I'm sure we had at least 10 kids come in to have a good build with them, as well as make one big scattered pile of different assorted legos.😂

That aside, we saw loads of other families thoroughly enjoying themselves too. Which was so lovely to see! Especially how they have such a good relationship with us as a service, and they know how well we support them whenever they need it.

I was sitting out by the lego tent for most of the day, and at one point, there was a boy who I recognised that went to the SEMH school I used to work at for 6 months (Grafham Grange). When he, and the mother were sitting close by our tent, the mother came over to me, and said that the boy recognises me from his school. He remembers my name as well. We both had a friendly chat for a few minutes, then when the mother & boy walked away, the boy said to me in a nice tone & manner: "Have a lovely day, and see you later".

This warmed my heart knowing that kids like him are perfectly capable of showing a kind personality when they are in a community friendly event. Especially when they remember you from their school setting. Fun fact: I had actually worked with this boy in IL before at my old school I used to work at, and I could hardly believe the difference in him when I saw him away from the school. This is purely all down to friendly interaction I had with him there.

Another time, there was another mother & son who approached me, and the son used to attend the previous Challengers scheme I worked at before it got shut down due to financial issues. The mother had a friendly conversation with me to begin with, by talking about how well her son is doing now since he aged out of Challengers 3 months ago.

She then kneeled by me to talk about some personal issues he'd been having over the past year (Won't go into any detail). The last few things she said was how much she appreciates as youth workers being there for the young people, like her son, as we make them feel accepted for who they are for what they are as individuals. She also added how she wants nothing else in the world other than her son to feel safe for who he is.

These are the pure reasons why I still carry on doing what I do as a youth worker, as I get to work closely with different young people by helping them be more confident with interacting with adults, as well as help them to have more confidence in themselves as they get older. The best part is when you know they know it too.🧡

How moral support can feel so positive & rewarding

Evening everyone! I thought about doing 1 of these posts that I literally come up with at the top of my head. And this post shall be linked to what I was doing yesterday.

So, 2 weeks prior, I got an email from the Samaritans Events Volunteer team, asking if I would be happy to cheer on cyclists who were undertaking the RideLondon event. Of course I gladly responded with a yes! I then yesterday headed up to Stratford City, East London, to hunt for the Samaritans cheering point.

This was now my 2nd time I got to volunteer at a major event with Samaritans!

As I arrived at my cheering point by the cycling track at the 95th mileage, I was warmly greeted by all of the rest of the Samaritans Events Volunteers, who clearly looked happy to be giving up their free time to come and cheer on the cyclists in aid of a good cause. I proceeded to get stuck in.

Where we were stood at, we could see that some of the cyclists looked done for the day, let alone done with the race. Our job was to ensure those tired cyclists powered on past us by feeding positive & motivational words into their mindset. Doing so served a single accomplishment of keeping those cyclists going through the pain barrier.

Without that hard-core moral support, those cyclists wouldn't be going anywhere, as they won't have any verbal fuel from cheerers to motivate their mindsets to accomplish something big as cycling 100 miles across London. This is why I think it's important that charities come together to bring their support for people doing challenging sporting events, as these people don't do them for nothing.

Now, some of you could be wondering why the hell I was at a major event up in London. It's not like I was up there just for the fun of it. Or just to see the cycling event. This was something that I had chose to be a part of, because I wanted to be involved with a charity I am passionate about. Plus, I genuinely feel positive when it comes to doing things for a community.

*This position wasn't where I was standing with the Samaritans stall*