Now don’t get me wrong, I love working in the NGO sector, in an urban community of Surry Hills, but there are just some things about community work that are hard to explain. Often it is the random, the awkward and the down right hilarious that add colour to the variety of things that happen each day. Just to give you a picture here are a few things that happened recently.
- In one of our busiest days of the year where we saw 70+ people for food assistance, had a few staff off sick (and remember in community work we very rarely have the money to pay casual staff), 3 pallets of deliveries plus maintenance work, we also have characters such as Harry.
Let me explain Harry (I have included a photo with his permission at the top). You see Harry is 51 years old, he shops in our internal food market, arranged through his case workers and visits us (and a few other places) to have a chat, use our phone and have a coffee. Harry is a famous in Surry Hills, even many of the taxi drivers know him.
Yet, no matter how busy we are, how many other things we have happening Harry demands our time. He won’t wait (patience is not his strong suit), no matter how often the staff ask him to wait, try to entertain him with conversations about the news, the 70’s and many other random things, Harry somehow manages to get through the doors into our office. Before we know it I am responding to emails, writing submissions or on the phone and Harry is talking at me in my doorway.
Then a plethora of colourful conversation happens. He informs me of the current events assuming I have not watched the news, tells me about the various Surry Hills businesses opening and closing and then asks for some up to date information about anything new happening at our service. And all of this is down at full volume, Harry doesn’t have an inside voice, only one level – LOUD! Ultimately our conversation ends with him wanting to use the phone to make his daily phone call to a particular person (they generally get the same conversation) and telling me what needs fixing around here.
You see, this is community work. All the things we do, the sometimes hectic days, the food deliveries, the filling in of staff when sick, even dealing with the occasional mouthful, its actually to help people like Harry have a better quality of life. The reality is, we and other services that support him are his “family”. Sure we don’t live together, but services like ours exist to ensure people do’nt just have food, clothing and shelter, but also people who are concerned for their well being. Connecting with him, reducing isolation, celebrating birthdays and journeying through hardship.
It isn’t easy and most of the time not glamorous, the assistance is just the first step to creating a meaningful relationship that can help sustain people’s emotional self. We are a christian service and Harry does believe in God, he was able to tell me this in a conversation about what the people at this service have done for him, “It showed me how to have relationship with people”. This is why we do what we do.
Tomorrow is always different, but our purpose remains the same.
robynjevans 