Kay's Story in Belfast

Kay has been a volunteer with Oxfam for almost 50 years and a prime example of someone who displays real selflessness and commitment to work as an unpaid volunteer for such a vast length of time. She is also responsible for helping to develop Oxfam’s first presence in Northern Ireland, working in various capacities such as a shop volunteer, board committee member, office intern, spokesperson and donations collector.

"Nine years ago, I had the honour of going on a trip to Tanzania with Oxfam to see the work that they do. That time in Africa was so special to me. We visited all kinds of projects, small farmers, such as a women-founded organisation that was set up in response to the HIV and AIDS crisis.

I was really impressed by the women in Africa, certainly the women that I met, because they were women small farmers. We didn’t speak Swahili, and some of them spoke very little English so we had a translator help us communicate. We were at this meeting of the Cooperative small farmers and the women were there standing on their feet, having their say, and I just thought that was wonderful, you know an example, to maybe even parts of Ireland, and that was nearly 10 years ago. So it was a PROFOUND experience. And I still get quite emotional when I talk about it.

One of the memories that stands out clearest in my mind from the trip was visiting, a lovely but shy Tanzanian woman who had contracted HIV and AIDS. I had great misgivings about intruding on her, and I said to one of the nurses, “Are you sure if we should be doing this?", and she said, “Oh yes, she knows and she's prepared." And the awful thing about it was her name was Happiness, and she had a child, and the man, I don’t know if it was her husband who infected her - but he left her. She had contracted AIDS and she was receiving antiretroviral drugs, which obviously had been paid for to some extent by the project. And that was really – it still affects me, I get very emotional about Tanzania. That poor woman… and many others...

And it’s extraordinary, you know, I being an old luddite, rage against technology, but actually providing small farmers with a mobile phone meant, that if they had a mobile phone they could find out the price of produce that day so they knew whether or not it was worth their while, hauling their produce on a bicycle into the market to be ripped off by traders. I could see the impact of these simple things first hand. There is progress. I mean development works, despite all the negative press that overseas organisations get, particularly in terms of equating what we are doing with the corruption of the governments in those countries.

A few years ago, I was thinking of giving up and a friend of mine said to me, you’ll never do that because Oxfam runs through your veins. I understand the importance of volunteers, and that’s why I’m enjoying so much the work I’m doing here lately in the office with the volunteer support manager, which is about recognition and awards for volunteers, many of whom have been working in our shops for 20 or more years."