[Marvin] This year, more than any other, Bristol volunteers have made a huge difference in our
city. Thousands of you have come together to play a key role in the pandemic response.
This Volunteers' Week we are recognising the fantastic contribution you have made
to our communities. Whether it's helping at a vaccination or testing site,
making a phone call to someone who's lonely, volunteering with community organisations,
handing out food parcels to the most vulnerable or even walking a neighbours dog.
Your selfless, can-do attitude has made a significant difference in helping get Bristol
and our residents through this challenging year. You are sharing our vision of a City of Hope
that creates welcome, safety, and hope to all of its citizens
and makes me feel proud to be the mayor. [Angela] We've offered to take transport to
medical appointments and vaccinations. We were limited by how many people we can actually have on
the vehicle. When we weren't allowed to transport at all we re-engaged. So we went to phone calls
and we were posting people towards the correct places to go for help. I then managed to source
some funding to arrange to have big hampers made. We had the help of Jo our volunteer to go out,
collect all the items in the shops then bring them here, make big bags. She came on the bus
with us, delivered them all with the PPE and the social distancing involved. We've also delivered
fish and chips, because for some reason everybody loves fish and chips. The other things we've done,
we've been lucky enough Jo is a cook, so she's made home cooked meals, we've delivered roast
dinners, cakes, anything really, and just been there on the phone to respond to what they need.
We've got bundles of letters thanking us, we've got family members thanking us for helping
their family because they haven't been able to go. So it's just been really, really rewarding.
We've got a lovely folder now of thank you cards and thank you letters and just now we're starting
to pick back up and all they talk about is how much that parcel made them smile, how much having
that roast dinner made their day and we can just see in their faces that, you know, we've done
a job, we served a purpose even if we couldn't do all we should. From volunteering wise, it takes
the pressure off of us, it lets us do what we need to do while somebody else can help facilitate
another use. So yeah, volunteers are mint. [Jo] I've been volunteer for several years now and
it's been an amazing response that you get. Sometimes just by answering the phone and you go,
oh, we haven't spoken to you for a while and then you end up having a full 30-minute conversation
with someone just and you know, by the end of the conversation, their voice is so much happier.
To ease a bit of depression for myself, to be able to get out there and knowing I'm helping
somebody else as well as helping myself. So knowing that I'm out there. Being stuck in the
same four walls can be really restricting. So to be able to get out and know I'm supporting
people and just being a benefit to the community. I've been volunteering on and off for eight
years between charity shops, mainly here at the Sprint and the Inns Court Community Centre and
for me, it's a lifeline almost. It's keeping that network, not being stuck in a rut,
getting out doing something. It improves your mental health, I can vouch for that personally,
and your personal wellbeing to know that you're out there doing something that can
help others even in the little things that can just make them smile. It's something
that's pointing in the right direction. [Heather] In March last year, we set up
a COVID hub to cover Knowle West and it involved lots of organisations and residents and so within
five days of the pandemic we were setting up and on April 2nd we took our first ten referrals
to support local residents. The volunteers were doing a lot of different things. So anything that
came up, we tried to see where we could allocate volunteers. The key things were things like
shopping, picking up prescriptions, food delivery, signposting, a bit of befriending. So whatever the
need was, we try to allocate volunteers towards that. So volunteers were key to the response.
If we can do it locally, it makes it much more sustainable. So neighbours helping neighbours,
people don't always value what volunteering is, but it makes a real difference to
the community in the long term. Without them we couldn't have responded so well to the COVID.
[David] I've been walking Paul's dogs Tank and Sukhi, although this is Sasha who belongs
to Teresa. We've been walking round here, doing walks have been doing twice weekly and I reckon
in the region now over the year about two hundred odd walks I think we're done with them now. So
it's just great for me to get out and about and mentally it's been great for me but also helping
out Paul and Teresa, who, you know, obviously needed a little help they can't get out and about
walking dogs. So, yeah, I like to think that I've been kind of helping out on that front.
I'm just pleased I could do my bit. Volunteering is important for communities like this because
it helps vulnerable people to support the services the government and council provide.
And, you know, it's really helping people in need and especially during the pandemic. It was
an emergency national crisis and charities all around the country have stepped up
and helped out and it was literally all hands to the pump. And, you know, I think we're all pleased
that we could help out and play our part, no matter how small that might have been.
[Paul] David's a volunteer who's been helping me out with my dogs, taking them for a walk
twice a week with his wife as well so that really helps me out. I'm a disabled man anyway and yeah,
they've been doing it since COVID-19. So I've got problems going out anyway. I've got nerve damage.
I've got no feeling from the waist down. I've got a mobility scooter that i use to take the dogs out
but being type two diabetes as well I've got be more vigilant. I'm glad
now I've had my vaccines now. Because it was just so much stress going out and that
and yeah, just a lot of hard work but when they two come along, opened up people like myself,
and older people wouldn't be able to get out or do anything. So I knew a lot of friends and all
that in just the same situation as me look. [Anndeloris] Bristol Black Carers is a charity
that supports carers in the community, both young and old. And when we say carers, we're
not referring to the care assistants who are paid to assist people in the community with their personal
care. It is friends, family, loved ones, and anyone who supports someone with caring needs.
It may seem simple, but helpful to the other person. During the last year has been massive
because first of all when the pandemic came, because our groups were meeting face to face,
we had to shut everything down. And then we realised that we need to contact people so we
started doing what we call wellbeing calls, and trying to call everybody at least once or twice
per week. The feedback we have gotten over the period of time is that, thank you very much for
making that call because it made me feel as though I was remembered, I was valued. And with that we
had toyed or thought about an idea about providing meals for people when they were unwell and our
meals on wheels with flavour emerged in that time. And then we coordinated getting drivers to
help deliver the meal to the people who could not prepare a meal for themselves during the COVID.
Volunteers are important because we give people the opportunity to give back. Because we like
to give, but we do like to receive. And for me giving and receiving supposed to be reciprocity.
And if we constantly help people, and we don't allow them to help in the way that they can, then
we are denying them the joy that we get from giving. [Anira] Humanitarian Bristol was set up in
response to the COVID crisis last year and we felt there was a need to provide essential food items
in boxes to people across Bristol because obviously the pandemic was so unprecedented
it affected a lot of people. And so we were the first to provide culturally appropriate boxes,
which meant that the items in there were accommodating different people
from different communities. And in total, we gave about 92,000 meals. We were then able to
kind of turn into a social enterprise because we became so successful, it felt silly not to
carry on the work that we were doing. So now what we do is we provide a holistic approach
in terms of services to accommodate communities around mental health, active participation,
recreational, empowerment. Volunteers across the board, you're amazing and I don't think you get
enough appraisal and appreciation for that. If it wasn't for you, projects like Humanitarian Bristol
would not have succeeded to where it is. [Aneela] I started off as a volunteer and
now we're currently doing sessional work. We're creating a recipe book, which we're very excited
about. So what we're trying to do is create easy budgeted recipes because we've noticed that during
the pandemic, people were going through financial difficulties and it wasn't easy to come across
ethnic food on a budget. So that's what we're trying to create in our recipe book, just easy,
authentic food. And for our second project, we're creating fitness force boxes. So that's
just to encourage South Asian women to get out and participate in sports more and just
get there blood pumping and doing a lot more like running and things like that, just to get them to
help them with their mental health as well. So we're really trying to encourage that.
Volunteers are important, because they're a huge part of HB. We started with them and without them
we wouldn't be anywhere. So they played a huge part in it and we really appreciate what they did.
I as a volunteer really enjoyed it, I gained a lot of experience for me, I met loads of different
people who I'm still in touch with. [Shada] I volunteer because I feel like
it's everyone's shared responsibility to try and look after each other and try and impart knowledge
and also learn from each other and I feel like I've got this opportunity to do that. Volunteering
absolutely makes a difference, because we're all living together in a community and we all need
to be responsible for our actions and also take supporting those around us. And if we
all took that collective responsibility, and then we're going to be in a better society overall.
[Sado] Thank you very much to all the volunteers that have given up their time,
during what was a really, really tough and difficult time for all of us. We know the
impact of the pandemic on different communities, and especially on diverse communities. However,
with that impact, we were really, really encourage to see the level of volunteering the generosity
from across the board, diverse communities, giving their time, helping people in trying to
come together in this difficult moment. To be able to support, whether it is around food provision,
whether it's around helping people who are lonely, it was really, really powerful and incredible,
to see the level of generosity from diverse communities, to give back, and to help in a time,
that was really, really difficult for everybody. So I just want to say thank you so much.
Really, really appreciate giving up your time, even though we're all going through
a very, very tough and difficult moment. [Sandra] Hi. So I'm Sandra Meadows from Voscur,
which is a local Bristol charity that works to enable support and develop charities,
community groups and social enterprises in the city. Been around for about 25 years so we're
well known in the city. I'm here today really to say a massive thank you to all of our outstanding
volunteers during the last year and continuing. I think the outstanding, amazing effort from
thousands of people really helped us to protect the most vulnerable, and really helped to keep
communities together during the worst phases of the pandemic. I think going forward, people
are returning to work so it'd be really nice if we encouraged people to continue volunteering,
there will still be needs. Talk to your local community organisations in your area and I
think you'll find that they'll have something very useful for you to do. No matter what it is just go
and have a chat and let's keep volunteering. [Marvin] I'm in awe of how Bristol has united
as One City in the face of COVID-19. Thank you all for giving your time and skills so
generously at such a difficult time. [All] Thank you, volunteers. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the volunteers for your help.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Bristol.