Sian has been volunteering as a telephone befriender for over three years now and has built a wonderful friendship with a deafblind member. We asked her about her experience as a befriender and how it started…
I’m a journalist and while I was reporting on the pandemic in 2020 I covered a story about how deafblind people, particularly those who were elderly, were struggling through lockdowns as they were lonely and couldn’t go out to access the support they needed. Keen to help, I immediately signed up as a telephone befriender with Deafblind UK – and here I still am now, more than three years later!
Thinking about how far my befriendee and I have come is amazing – our friendship has seen through lockdowns, our own health struggles and even the coronation of a new monarch. I hope that I offer her support and company through good times and bad, as she does for me. We talk about all sorts of things including our upcoming plans, our loved ones, our hobbies and what’s happening in the news. It adds so much to my life to talk to someone from a different generation and part of the country to me, and it gives me so much more perspective than I have ever had before. Deafblind UK also offers great support, checking in on volunteers and finding out if anything needs to be provided to befriendees.
It’s been so easy to plan our chats around our schedules, and my befriendee and I have been talking for so long now it doesn’t even feel like volunteering – I absolutely love our weekly conversations and really look forward to them. It just feels like picking up the phone to a good friend when we speak, because that’s exactly what it is now, and I know she feels the same!
