Nora Frederich, from Dresden in Germany came to Cork Simon as a full-time volunteer eight years ago and has stayed since as a full-time worker. Today, Nora works as part of our outreach team.

“When people first come to the door (of the day centre), they can have a lot of things on their mind. I think it’s really important that we take that weight off people a little bit. Just someone listening to you is really important, and that already helps to take some weight off your shoulders.

The most important thing is just to stay hopeful for people and take things day-by-day and in really small steps. And if something comes up on the day and you don’t get any paperwork done, that is ok; maybe that person just needs a chat and if that’s what they need on the day, that’s ok.”

Nora describes how Cork Simon has come to mean “home” to her…