Pandemic Volunteering Stories - Jackie & Haroon, Dewsbury South Community Support
Dewsbury South Community Support is a multicultural, multi-faith Community Group supporting the people of Dewsbury who are in need, including those affected by the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Jackie’s Story
I am a long-standing volunteer for Citizens Advice Bureau and also chair a volunteer-run group, Friends of Dewsbury Train station. I wanted to do something to support our whole Dewsbury South community throughout the pandemic.
We established Dewsbury South Community Support in March 2020. I coordinate the activities along with key colleagues, including food gift distributions and making up food parcels. I volunteer in the food bank every Friday morning along with 3 other Volunteers, we take a lot of calls requesting help. We also distribute food on the streets on late Sunday afternoons.
What have you found rewarding or memorable about your experience?
Volunteering was an opportunity to feel like I was making a difference during the initial lockdown. We took a lot of calls for assistance such as shopping and collection of prescriptions. I got to know customers well and we are still in touch with some of the elderly residents as they ring round for hot food requests.
Dewsbury South Community Support group has enabled me to develop relationships with others in the group – we are a multi-cultural organisation. We would never have got to know each other so well if we hadn’t volunteered together through this difficult time.
I now have a more in-depth understanding of the communities we serve, which will assist me no end as I have just been elected the new Councillor for the ward.
Haroon’s Story
I’ve always been an active volunteer, and have been involved with Darul Ilm mosque for two decades. The management committee at the Mosque got together a few weeks prior to the first lockdown to look at how we could support our community through the pandemic, as we expected that people would be losing jobs. We have always had inter-faith events so we already had good connections with Thornhill Parish Church and Thornhill school so we were able to collaborate with them at this time of need.
It didn’t take us long to get the food bank and support structure in place to form Dewsbury South Community Support.
The tasks I am involved with vary greatly, I am involved behind the scenes using my IT background to work on the website but I am also involved with the weekly food parcels and talking to individuals over the phone who access our helpline. I have studied as an Imam so this has helped me to get to know people in the community and people often come to me directly who need help but want to remain confidential.
I have noticed how warm people are, we know there is a lot of deprivation in the area, but people are so thankful and grateful. One young family in Thornhill Lees were very reluctant to ask for help– they got my name through a third party and contacted me to explain they were frightened that they couldn’t put food on the table due to delays with their benefits. We were able to support them through a difficult few days. As we are a local and trusted organisation, we can provide help confidentiality to people- this is important, particularly to some segments of the Asian community where there is a stigma attached to asking for help when they feel they should be able to provide for their family.
My parents brought me up with an understanding that helping others brings you closer to God, and I personally experience spiritual enlightenment and upliftment through helping others. Volunteering makes you feel productive and I hope I will leave this world having done something productive and made people smile.
The experience of supporting people during the pandemic has been a huge learning curve. We have met lots of people and I hope a positive legacy will be the permanent breaking down of barriers. We hope our work will make it easier to offer more inter-faith events and integrated community activities in the future.
Find out more
Dewsbury South Community Support provides Food, Hygiene and Sanitary products and promotes wellbeing and learning.
You can view their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/DewsburySouthCommunitySupport/