Nikki moved to Orkney in October 2022 and in that time has seen her confidence and self-esteem flourish through being actively involved in the community.
Nikki started volunteering on reception at the Blide Trust where she meets and greets service users and answers telephone calls. This experience helped her to gain confidence in communicating with others. She then put herself forward to become a member of what has now been named ‘The Jedi Council’ - a group of local people with experiences of job seeking and local employability support services, who work closely with the Orkney Local Employability Partnership (LEP). More recently, she also began volunteering as a shop assistant at Restart Orkney.
In the 2 years since the Jedi Council began, they have been involved in projects including the design of an employability hub for Kirkwall as well as the creation of a website directing people to employability support available locally. As a sub-group of the Local Employability Partnership, a representative attends the monthly meetings to provide an update on the group’s activities. The Jedi Council provides a valuable insight into the employability support in Orkney that helps to shape the work of the partnership and Nikki has taken part from the start. She said:
Being involved in the Jedi Council has provided me with some really valuable employability skills, such as team-working, communication and problem-solving skills. It also gave me the confidence to put myself forward as a volunteer for other organisations.
As a social enterprise, Restart Orkney relies upon volunteers like Nikki to help keep the shop running and to meet its organisational goals. She volunteers there every Wednesday and Saturday from 10am to 2pm. Her role includes serving customers, creating posts for their Facebook page, answering telephone calls and responding to customers’ social media posts. It has helped to increase her confidence further. She said:
It has really improved my self-esteem and given me a sense of purpose and value. The organisation putting trust in me as a volunteer has really helped me to believe in myself.
Nikki was keen to expand her volunteering experience and try something new. She met with us to discuss the different options and through our support she was able to take on an additional volunteer role at St Colm’s Day Centre. At the centre she supports service users with digital crafts.
Volunteering helped Nikki to gain experience and build her confidence. The skills she has developed will be taken forward into the future and she has begun studying for a degree which she would not have applied for before becoming a volunteer.
