Our celebration of our volunteers continues with a look back at a proud and well deserved award-winning moment!
In 2019, VICTA volunteer Bob Lowrie was Highly Commended at the Third Sector Awards in the ‘Volunteer of the Year’ category. We wanted to show Bob our appreciation as he’s been donating his time and volunteering for VICTA since his first experience guiding visually impaired young adults down Mount Snowdon back in 2016.
From that first experience, Bob threw himself into the Early Years Weekends (0-4yr olds), Family Weekends (5-17yr olds) and 14+ and 18+ residentials. He is just as happy playing in a creche as he is driving a full minibus across the country or taking a group sailing.
Bob Lowrie smiling holding his award outside the venue
His love for the charity was cemented during the summer of 2018 when he committed to 20 days straight of volunteering on 3 separate activities. This included the Summer Family Weekend where he supported a group of visually impaired children to take part in climbing high ropes, building rafts and taking part in the fancy dress party. He drove straight from the Family Weekend (Shropshire) to Marloes in South Wales to take a group of visually impaired 18-29yr olds to Skomer Island to complete their John Muir Award, focussing on conservation projects whilst living remotely on the island.
This was tough enough, but as Bob does he went the extra mile, going straight from Skomer Island to Gatwick to join VICTA staff on a Spanish Exchange for 14-17 yr olds. This trip involved taking 16 British visually impaired teenagers to ONCE, a Spanish blind organisation based in Alicante, for five days before returning with the both British and Spanish cohorts for five further days in the UK.
“During my time with this 8 year old who had been blind from birth I saw him nervously attempt some of the activities but by the end he was abseiling, flying up climbing walls and kayaking on his own. Watching him grow in confidence as each day went on and to see his enthusiasm as he told his parents of what he had achieved and the faces of his incredibly proud parents is all the motivation I will ever need to continue volunteering with VICTA.”
Bob smiling with a group of young adults on a boat during an environmental activity to Wales
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