Meet the volunteer - Roxinne

How did you first get involved with volunteering?

When I was growing up, my parents always taught me to fight for justice and that if you feel that something is unfair or wrong, question it constantly and do something about it if you can. My grandmother was one of the most remarkable people I had ever met. She was a teacher at a secondary school for the majority of her life. When she was retiring she said to me, a 6 year old then, “my love, in this world there's a lot of hate and darkness. But there are also people with big hearts and lots of compassion. The darkness turns into rain and that rain means hope.”

To this day I think about what she said and how comforting it was to hear that from someone who had seen so much and to know that the world could be a good place if we just put our minds towards changing it.

Later on when my aunt raised money for young girls in Tanzania to enable them to have better opportunities, I recalled what my grandmother had said "the world can be a good place but we have to work towards it together, one step at a time." That is why I volunteer for CAFOD in my parish.

What’s been the best thing about volunteering for CAFOD?

By doing simple acts like handing out envelopes, delivering a short talk and displaying a poster, I know I am a piece in the jigsaw of alleviating poverty. By encouraging my fellow parishioners, family, friends and students to support CAFOD’s campaigns, we are targeting the root causes of injustice.

How does your parish inspire you?

Having an enthusiastic CAFOD group in my parish of St Augustine in Milton Keynes makes supporting CAFOD’s work all the better as we can share and discuss ideas and share tasks too. Listening to them and praying with them inspires and encourages me to want to do more and we have done lots of innovative activities to promote and educate people.

What would you say to prospective volunteers?

I know that by volunteering with CAFOD I have and will continue to make a difference, you can too!