Taking home a Saltire Summit Award from the Inspire Awards for her voluntary work at Barnardo’s is Robyn-Leigh Airlie. Robyn has taken part in school holiday activity days and supported children and young people at Barnardo’s for two and a half years, totalling up 370 hours! Firstly, she is considered going above and beyond through her immense commitment to the organisation; she has worked for several years adding up many hours, she gives up free time in the school holidays and even offers to work more days when the group are stuck for volunteer numbers. She is also known to offer support to other groups -such as those on a Saturday – run by the organisation when they are struggling for help.  What makes Robyn stand out is that despite working a lot, she remains motivated and enthusiastic about helping others and never loses her friendly manner.

Robyn also demonstrates award worthy skills in her role. She is praised for her leadership skills during activity days which involve leading up to ten children with other members of staff and volunteers. Furthermore, her leadership skills have particularly received positive feedback when she has been linked 2:1 with children and young people with challenging behaviours and higher support needs. Not only are her leadership skills excellent with service users, but she is also supportive of staff and encouraging towards other volunteers.

Finally, Robyn has helped the organisation and community by being a good role model. By being young and progressing over the years, she is a positive figure to other volunteers at the service and has supported staff at an event for recruiting volunteers by talking about her experience.  We look forward to seeing you at the approaching ceremony Robyn!

Rachel – Media Volunteer at Volunteer Dundee