It takes a special kind of person to give up weeks of their time, and pay for all their own travel and accommodation to work for the benefit of others. And every now again we get one that is extra special.
Andrew started working for us on 1 November and within 1 week took over the role of Volunteer Co-ordinator at Alexandreia. He continued to do that until 13 February at least 6 days a week, with a break over Christmas and has been critical to any success we’ve had over that period.
The Volunteer Co-ordinator needs to prioritise what activities to focus on for the day and make sure our services are delivered every single day, lead the morning briefing meeting, ensure that all volunteers know what they are doing for the day and where they are going to be, support them in their activities and when things get difficult, train new volunteers, maintain knowledge within a team that is always temporary, taxi people around, deal with issues decisively when they arise, make sure we are well stocked with everything we distribute, spend money and account for it, show donors around, deal with the other partners on the camp, and be in constant communication with Paul and John.
Quite simply, Andrew was brilliant at all of this and remained incredibly popular with the volunteers. To give you an idea, while Andrew was leading he oversaw the:
- work of 86 volunteers and up to 20 on a single day
- distribution of 4,000 items of clothing
- distribution of 800 pairs of shoes
- distribution of €18,000 of food from our minimarket
- distribution of 500 toys from our toy shop
- distribution of heating gas to the entire camp for 3 weeks
- supply of new essentials to residents when they moved from tents to caravans
- project to supply every caravan with a framed family portrait
- the sorting of all these items and more in our warehouse
- 30 women’s time sessions
- the addition of 4 new pieces of equipment to our playground
- countless children’s activities
- the redecoration of our boutique and children’s space
- development and improvement of our community kitchen from 180 meals a day to 300 a day
- creation and launch of our adult language lessons
- creation and launch of our lending library
And all at the age of 25. This extraordinary young man has a bright future in this field, or in anything he chooses to do.
