Camaraderie, Purpose and Paint: Life on a Rippleacts Project team

Ever wondered what it's like to work on a Rippleacts project?

One of our participants, Matthew, from our most recent project at Change, Grow, Live has put together a blog about his experience.

While looking through some training/volunteer opportunities in the Pottergate Job Centre an intriguingly unusual name stood out. Rippleacts. This immediately had me asking about it and when I was told it was a practical volunteering project, helping out in the community, I jumped at the chance to get involved. I have been out of work for around two years and any possibility to do something of substance I grab it with both hands.

My first point of contact was by email, and I began soon afterwards. Upon arriving at the CGL (Change, Grow, Live. The Norfolk Alcohol and Drug Behaviour Change Service) building I met fellow volunteers and Andy, who runs Red Maintenance, the facilitator for this project. Everyone was friendly and happy to be there. We spent the next few hours chatting about what we could do with the day room we were tasked with decorating. The room was rather plain and sterile, so our imaginations took flight.

Once we had decided on our approach the second week was spent gathering necessary materials and preparing the room for decoration.

I had thought about doing the main wall in an ombre style, using different shades of blue, and Andy gave me free rein to bring my ideas to life. The other volunteers took on the jobs of repainting the other three walls and building a centrepiece table from scratch.

As the weeks progressed everything went smoothly. The ombre wall wasn't as easy as I had envisioned and I had to change it in the final weeks to something simpler (An indoor imitation trellis) which turned out wonderfully. We also decided on some art pieces for the walls as well as many plants, some small tables and a lovely water feature.

Everyone got on well, with immense camaraderie and I made a couple of new friendships too. This whole experience, while I would have liked to learn more new skills, has been very fulfilling and has given me a purpose over the eight weeks we have been engaged in this task, leaving me with a strong feeling of being worthwhile and necessary. This is something you can't put a price on and I am very grateful to everyone on the project, especially Verena, who has gone above and beyond in helping me feel accepted and capable of all I strive to achieve. I would love to be involved in further projects, even volunteering directly for Rippleacts itself.

As a next step, I will now pursue training and a career as a teaching assistant. 

If you have any ideas, opportunities or resources for Matthew we'd love to hear from you. Please drop them over in our contact form

Do you have a hands on project that we and our participants can help with? Get in touch.