Volunteers Week Scotland: Robin

Hi, my name is Robin, my pronouns are they/them and I’m on the LGBT Health and Wellbeing Board of Trustees. My day job is as the Representation and Democracy Manager at Edinburgh University Students Association, and outside of work, I spend most of my time caring for my embarrassingly large house plants collection and dreaming of a wardrobe that is entirely of multi-coloured jumpsuits.

What was your journey to becoming a volunteer at LGBT Health and Wellbeing?

I had been involved in LGBT Health and Wellbeing and community groups over a number of years from when I was a student and all the way to kind of the present day. I had also accessed LGBT Health and Wellbeing’s counselling service. And so when I saw that you were advertising for Trustees, I thought that was a really good opportunity to use some of the skills that I developed from my day job, and really apply them to helping to develop and enhance the services that LGBT Health and Wellbeing offer.

What is your role as a volunteer?

So along with all the other Trustees on the Board, we’re responsible for the strategic management and governance of the organisation so making sure that everything is on track, and that we’re really working together as an organisation towards our ultimate goals of supporting the LGBT community in Scotland.

What are you the most proud of as a Trustee?

I’ve only been with LGBT Health and Wellbeing for a couple of months now but I’m so proud of the way that we’ve supported some of the most marginalised members of our community during COVID. We’ve really stepped up to support our asylum-seeking communities that we work with, in really practical and tangible ways, and I think that is so important.

As a Trustee, to me it’s really important that we’re not only delivering great services that are reactive and responsive to the needs of our users, but that we’re also looking after all of our volunteers and incredible staff members as well so one thing I’ve been really passionate about this year has been supporting staff through COVID and making sure that they’re well supported and able to deliver those great services out to our service users as well.

If you could change something for the community, what would it be?

So I’m fighting for a world in my personal and professional life where trans people have safe and affordable access to health care and housing, and that every single trans person has the love of the people that matter to them.

Who do you look up to?

I don’t really have a role model but I am inspired every day, as cliché as it sounds, by the young people that I get to work with. They have taught me so much about community and care and growing into the person that you want to be no matter what age you are so all of them are my role models.