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The Coronavirus pandemic has had an impact on all aspects of our lives, as well as how many of our services are being delivered.
Here Tia, Nature in Mind‘s Administrative and Communications Officer, shares her experience, of how it has affected her life but also the service that she works in.
How has the Coronavirus impacted on you?
I think the Coronavirus impacted me in a peculiar way. Instead of walking to work from home, I now walk to my desk from my bedroom. Instead of meeting friends for coffee or dinner, we now video chat while cooking or having coffee. The bright side is that my cooking skills have been massively improved! I also got a chance to pick up drawing which I have neglected since I moved to the UK three years ago. Plus, having recently moved, I got to utilise the extra time to organise and decorate my flat exactly as I wanted it to. On the other hand, I find it really hard not knowing when I will get to travel home and meet my family and loved ones again which makes me miss them even more. However, this free time gave us the chance to come closer, I now video chat with my parents every day and we all quite enjoy it!
How has the Coronavirus impacted your service?
The essence of Nature in Mind as most people know is outdoor group activities which, of course, we couldn’t continue providing during the Coronavirus outbreak. However, we are continuing to offer support to our participants through phone calls, emails, texts and social media while working from home. We also started a series of newsletters related to nature and wildlife and the feedback is so positive that I think we’ll continue writing them after we re-open. We continue accepting referrals and working on our evaluation and new funding applications, so that when the restrictions are lifted we will be ready to go back into doing what we love. I think our team has done such a good job during this situation!
What have you done in response?
As the Administrator and Communications Officer, I am responsible for most of the service’s communications which can be a tricky during this time. All of us spend more time online and we can get overwhelmed pretty fast with all the news about the Coronavirus. That is why I have tried to keep a positive tone in our social media as well as in all the other service communications.
Is there anything you’d like to add?
What I realised these past months is that everyone has dealt with this situation in their own unique way and that there is not right or wrong way to feel about. We all just have to be patient, kind with each other and follow the guidelines until things go back to the ‘new normal’”.
