Amber, one of our young Trustees has made the brave decision to move to Romania to volunteer at an orphanage called Pro Vita. Over the past 6 years she says she has changed from a person who was too anxious to even order a take-away to someone who is moving to a completely different country with no-one she knows. When thinking about how far she has come during her time with TYA she said, “This transition is something that I am immensely proud of, especially as it is a transition I have made while dealing with a wide range of obstacles, including anxiety and Joint Hypermobility Syndrome. I hope to show people who are struggling with these things themselves that it is still possible to achieve your dreams.”
Amber first joined in our activities 6 years ago when she took part in National Citizens Service with TYA and she never looked back. Following on from NCS she started volunteering for The Youth Association and got involved with several projects including Young Inspectors and NCS graduates. She said, “My volunteering at the Youth Association helped me to find purpose and space for myself in my life. I started thinking about pitching and facilitating my own projects, which culminated in a cultural exchange project to Prague to gain a deeper understanding of the issues faced by the Roma Slovak communities and the different ways of working with these communities. Staff at the Youth Association helped to guide and encourage me throughout these years and inspired me to work in the helping professions. They spoke to me about the different options for degree choices and the different career paths I could take and helped me to prepare for my chosen degree path of social work.” Amber became a member of the board of trustees for The Youth Association in March 2017.
Amber has started learning Romanian in preparation for her year volunteering, with the help of a friend who is from Romania. She hopes to post about her adventures on her blog site. She’s still a TYA trustee and hopes to stay in touch with the work of the Board while she’s in Romania.
Read more about Amber’s story or follow Amber’s journey.
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