Volunteering role gets national interest

Grace Moucharafieh has described her experience of helping as a way-finder marshal at the Maldwyn Leisure Centre site, where she says every effort has been made to make the vaccination experience as welcoming as possible.

Grace is a second-year BA International Relations student at King’s College London, who grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, but has strong ties to Montgomery, where her mum, Ruth, is from and lives.

She says the personal benefits of volunteering far outweigh their positive impact on the community.

She says of the volunteering experience: “At the Newtown mass Vaccination Centre volunteers give out sanitiser, direct people through the centre, wipe down surfaces and meet every patient with a warm smile and welcoming words. In truth, these tasks may seem mundane, but their collective impact is bigger than these tasks alone. The national vaccination effort is an incredible machine where all the tiny cogs come together to form something almost magical through interactions that make your heart swell.”

You can read Grace’s full blog on the International Relations Today website.

Grace is also one of the volunteers, who along with her mum and an RAF serviceman painted the shed, outside the Newtown Mass Vaccination Centre, bright pink and included cartoons of covid vaccines and a welcome in English and Welsh.