In 2021, SAMESH volunteers donated more than 400 hours of their time to support a range of activities, including Feast Festival events, university campus engagements and assembling safe sex packs.
Many of our volunteers have used the skills and knowledge gained from their experiences with us to successfully gain employment as new volunteers join the team.
In light of National Volunteer Week celebrated May 16-22, we spoke with Conrad who has been volunteering with SAMESH for over 5 years.
“It’s been a wonderful experience. I continue to volunteer, and I’m excited about the things we keep on doing,” he said.
“The volunteer coordinator asked me if I could be a volunteer administrative assistant… and it was quite exciting to see different facets of the community. I branched out into other roles too everything from training as a health educator to doing outreach and being part of our FEAST panels.”
During his time volunteering, Conrad had seen that a large part of the community are questioning their sexuality or aren’t in a position to share their sexual identity publicly.
“I think being a person of colour myself truly helps. I’ve had a lot of people, especially of other origins, come up and ask me questions. To be able to help them with their health and be in a better mental state as well — it really makes me happy,” he said.
Conrad called on others keen to contribute to the community’s health and wellbeing to volunteer with SAMESH.
“Just give it a shot, you’ll never know! It’s a very welcoming community. There’s a lot of respect, trust, and privacy between everyone, and the only thing that could happen is it could get better for you — so go for it!”
Listen to the full podcast with Conrad on Well, Well, Well — JOY’s show delving into the health and wellbeing of LGBTIQ communities here.
