Although emotional support is offered to cancer patients and their families, there is a need in the Paphos region for English speaking volunteers
How many cancer patients does it take to change a light bulb?
Just one – but they need a support group to cheer them on.
Christine Winfield, Sally Unsworth, and Jill Dare are three very interesting and talented women whose aim is to ensure the sum of their many and varied talents are put to good use. In doing so, they will indirectly play a key, if not pivotal, role in the lives of local cancer patients and their families.
These women recognised a need in the community for trained volunteers to work alongside existing healthcare professionals. For many years, the cancer centre in Paphos has been training Cypriot volunteers to visit Cypriot cancer patients in their own homes. These men and women regularly make home visits to patients, being with them at critical times during their treatment and offering much needed emotional support. What was missing was a similar service for the increasing number of English-speaking patients in the area. So these three women decided to set up a course that would enable volunteers in Cyprus to be sufficiently well trained to take on the task of supporting both patients and their families through the sometimes long and emotionally-overwhelming cancer journey.
Each woman brings her own set of skills to the project. Before moving to Paphos, Christine worked as a Samaritan for 24 years, where she helped train new volunteers. She also trained volunteers working with a north London based hospice and was a committed ‘relative support’ worker at a large, UK cancer drop in centre.
Sally Unsworth, a retired nurse and midwife, was the motivating force behind the highly-regarded Bereavement Group, which has, over the years, helped hundreds of bereaved men and women come to terms with the loss of a loved one.
The third member of this trio is Jill Dare, a retired counselor who has been responsible for running similar specialised courses. Foreign countries affected by natural disasters even call upon her services to help people recover from the seemingly overwhelming experiences of human devastation.
Despite the rather serious nature of their combined body of work, these are three exceedingly warm and caring women who help prove that there are some retirees in Cyprus who are not solely interested in dining out, gossiping and lying baking poolside all day. Although enjoying their retirement, they still make time to put something back into their adopted society and help others in a meaningful way. However, they need your help.
The course they have compiled and now teach has been put into place and they are looking for volunteers to be trained. The course entails a commitment of one full day a month and is overseen by the psychologist at the cancer centre in Paphos. It is a one-year course comprising of one and a half hours weekly over a period of three terms of ten weeks (excluding July, August and December). It includes talks, discussion groups, videos, role play, self awareness and the all important development of listening skills.
This is not a voluntary job that everyone is capable of taking on, some may find the level of commitment needed after completing the course too onerous to contemplate, after all this is a serious business dealing with a hugely mixed bag of emotions, heartache, respect, joy and sadness. As such it requires some very special people to be able to recognise not only the emotional turmoil of others and deal with it but also to have first recognised and dealt with their own emotional baggage.
It’s a huge and important challenge and if you genuinely feel you can take this on and make a difference within your community then Christine Winfield wants to hear from you.
For more information contact Christine Winfield, Tel: 26 270372 or 99 311653
