By Annette Campbell
We’ve all heard the saying that giving is better than receiving. And no-one understands that more than 51-year-old Yvonne Sutherland, who has spent most of her working life volunteering her skills both here and overseas.
“Volunteer work gives a real sense of community,” she says. “It is amazingly rewarding and a two-way experience — great for you and whoever you’re helping.
“My background and qualifications are all in social science and I’ve had a mixture of paid and voluntary positions. It’s a really good feeling to work voluntarily to support something and watch it grow.”
Yvonne, a divorced mother of three, now adult children, currently lives in Darwin, where she has a paid job as the services manager for a non-government organisation for people with mental illness, called TEAM Health (Top End Association for Mental Health).
And of course, she is also still a volunteer, as the secretary of a Northern Territory shelter that deals with accommodation issues for disadvantaged people.
“I guess the love and desire to do volunteer work is something I was born with,” Yvonne smiles, happy to tell her story to help publicise the upcoming International Volunteer Day on December 5.
“It creates a real sense of public service and belonging to a community.”
Before her current position in the NT, Yvonne spent nearly a year volunteering in a medical clinic in Thailand.
“I was there from July 2003 to April 2004 as an administrator at the Mae Tao Clinic, which provides health care services to more than 80,000 people,” she says. “I worked directly with doctors and the staff to help keep paperwork and other things in order.
“I lived in nearby Mae Sod, in a guesthouse. It was very beautiful and had western toilets and a hot shower. The only drawback was that I got dengue fever while I was there and I was very sick for two weeks.
“It felt like I’d been hit by a series of baseball bats. I was hot, cold, had a rash, spots, aching joints. But overall it was such a wonderful experience and I plan to go back in 2006, after I complete some more study here first.”
Yvonne agrees that her level of volunteer work is really at the deep end. But she is keen to encourage all of us to offer our time and skills to organisations closer to home.
“There just aren’t enough dollars to go around sometimes,” she says. “And it only needs people to put their hands up to help make things happen. The joy of giving far outweighs the effort and you only need to give a little to make a big difference.”
Sunday, December 5 is International Volunteer Day
Contact Australian Volunteers International on 1800 331 292 or visit their website www.australianvolunteers.com to find out what’s happening in your community.
Picture: Yvonne Sutherland with a young orphan at Mae Tao Clinic, Mae Sod, Thailand.
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