OOPS!!! I wrote yesterday’s blog but forgot to publish it…….ai the blond moments!!
It is not often that I have an opportunity to combine two of my BIGGEST passions.
The one is my passion for charity work. One of the charities I support is ABBA House. ABBA House is a short term place of safety that cares for babies from birth to nine months of age. There’s babies are often abandoned or released for adoption. ABBA gives quality care to them until a suitable forever family can be found. I have been involved with ABBA House since 2002. When I first started I was a volunteer in the nursery. I worked a four hour shift twice a week. There is nothing quite like it. You normally arrive during “suicide hour” 18 babies all wanting to be feed and cuddled and rocked to sleep at the same time!!! It gets hectic and you learn to feed two babies at once while rocking a baby in a “piccalo” chair with your foot and if you get really good you can rock two babies at once and feed two babies all at the same time. I loved it. Later I started helping with the volunteer co-ordinating and eventually did volunteer training and scheduling. ABBA House has always been a blessing in my life and I love the work that I am able to do there however, it became increasingly more difficult for me to work directly with the babies.
Wanting to have a family of my own it was difficult for me to leave the babies each time I was there. The problem was that the South African legislation is so steeped in red tape that it often stretches out the adoption process especially in case of international adoptions and cross racial adoptions. This meant that the babies were staying in our care longer and longer sometimes celebrating their first birthdays with us. This was very difficult for me because I believe that every child deserves to be in the loving arms of their forever families. In short it got hard…….so I started spending more and more time on other aspects of ABBA such as fund raising events and the training of new volunteers. As work started to demand more of my time I had to withdraw from ABBA because regardless of whether you are a fulltime employee or volunteer they rely on you and there is NOTHING worse than an unreliable volunteer. So over the past two years I have only been involved in certain aspect of the volunteer co-ordination.
My second passion is training. I love to teach people new skills or even better empower people to develop themselves. I am especially passionate about empowering women. I feel that as a women who has access to training course on a variety of subjects I am in a position to transfer the skills I have learnt to others. Plus I like to talk………At work I do soft skills training such as conflict management, assertiveness training, telephone skills, listening skills and coaching which are all great to present as I more often than not learn a lesson or two during the process.
But one of my favorite courses which I designed is “Win the job, Win the interview”. It covers everything from having a positive attitude, to what to look for in prospective employers, compiling a CV, preparing for an interview, dressing the part, body language during an interview, interview questions and so and so on. It’s a fairly intense 8 hour course but once you have been through it you will be well prepared for just about any interview situation.
The Manager of ABBA House request that I come and present my “Win the job, Win the interview”. This is part of the new life skills programme for staff members in an effort to empower and develop them in an ever changing economic environment. So last night I presented the course to the first group of ladies and it was amazing. I could almost feel the knowledge being shared and I know that it will make a difference in their lives. If they learnt nothing else from me they know these two things……The right person for the right job at the right time and when God closes a door, He always opens a window!!!
So moi got the opportunity to combine my ABBA passion with my passion for training. How blessed can one girl be………
What is your passion?
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