A day in the life of a Gapper: Hannah and Carmel

Hannah and Carmel are on a placement with Just Youth, CAFOD's partner in Salford. Here's how they've been getting on.

It’s impossible to describe a typical day here because each and every day varies so much! Generally we work in high schools (but sometimes in primary school) for a few days a week, leading sessions on spirituality issues like ‘prejudice and discrimination’ or ‘Global inequality’ – lots of the time (but not always) we look at social justice issues.

At other times schools come here to the Spiritan centre to do retreat days with us, where we focus on similar issues surrounding their personal and spiritual development. The rest of the time we are planning in the office: making rainbows for paraliturgies, planning reflections and doing lots of arts and crafts! Twice a week we have youth club (where we basically play pool and table tennis) to build positive relationships with the young people in our area of Lower Kersal, who often have their own issues and challenges to deal with.

Life is very busy here and it can be exhausting, but ultimately it’s a good thing, there’s never a moment of boredom. We also have lots going on in our home community (prayer services, masses, day trips etc!) There are two of us ‘gappers’ here (Hannah and Carmel) and we live with two other volunteers, two Spiritan priests and a Christian brother. We always seem to be busy helping out at various events, attending conferences, helping at concerts etc but we have fun when we’re doing it.

Living and working here in Salford can be challenging with people from so many different cultures but it can also be very rewarding. When the students get really passionate about our sessions it can be amazing – they really enjoy the opportunity to explore themselves outside of a purely academic environment and a good game of splat always brightens the day!

Sharing ideas with young people is fantastic for the development of charitable work as well; our link with CAFOD and young people means that we can bring fresh ideas to things like fundraising and awareness-raising. When people are aware of issues of injustice from a young age, they’re more likely to be active citizens for positive change in the future, and break down the barriers of prejudice, which is why it’s so thrilling to be a part of this work, it’s so worth it!