Alex's story

Hello, my name is Alex. I am a volunteer with Hestia helping service users who have suffered from modern-day slavery with numeracy and maths.

I got into this work from being a service user under another Hestia project. My wonderful support worker, who helped me greatly after a long period of mental ill-health. told me that Hestia took on volunteers. As part of my recovery process, I was looking to do some voluntary work, so I looked at Hestia’s website and saw an advert for maths tutors. I had previously taught numeracy in an FE college and applied.

Over the course of the last year and a half I have helped three clients improve their numeracy to help them in everyday life, gain numeracy qualifications and get on FE courses. The clients had not studied maths for a long time and much of my work was helping them gain confidence in areas like decimals, fractions and percentages.

It has been a real joy to refresh my teaching skills after a long absence and learn new new skills supporting the clients online via Zoom.

It has helped me regain confidence, self-esteem and get back into a work habit As a result, I have felt able to apply for paid work and to start paid tutoring.

Volunteering with Hestia could not be more rewarding. Not only am I able to help clients with maths skills and confidence, but I have benefited from Hestia training in areas like cv writing, interview skills and target setting. I have received excellent support and encouragement from my supervisor, who has kept me focussed, and from the volunteering team. I would highly recommend Hestia as an employer.

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