 | Milly Turner | |||
 THIS WAS NOT VOLUNTEERING. It was bloody hard work. Milly Turner went through six days of residential training before she was let loose at The Samaritans (see profile [0]) - and her first event left her shattered.Milly, 26, was a volunteer counsellor at a music festival. “It was a half hour walk from the tent to the Samaritans tent,” she says. “We worked in shifts, four hours on, four hours off, day and night, and we worked seven of these over a weekend, so we don’t get much sleep. It was exhausting.” But it was the challenge she'd been looking for. Working only mornings, she was looking for something substantial to fill the rest of her waking hours. “I had already helped out at a community youth group and loved meeting lots of different people," she says, "and I wanted to step up a gear." “All 40 of us ate together and there was one shower for us all!”The Festival Branch of the Samaritans offers a listening ear to anyone at music events who is feeling low. When she was accepted as a volunteer, Milly had no idea know how strenuous and time-consuming this listening was - though her suspicions were aroused early on: Related articles
But two years on and countless festivals under her belt, Milly knows that the experience has brought out the best in her and given her a sense of direction: she is now applying to study a Master’s degree in counselling and she says her work at the Samaritans was pivotal in making the decision. “Through this work I realised how much I enjoy talking to people and listening to their problems," she says. “Unless I'd met the Samaritans I probably would have thought about counselling, but would never have done anything about it.” |