It's tough to believe that Sarah and I have been working together, job sharing the role of manager at Amica for over 4 years. This summer Sarah will be leaving to work for RBS more days a week, and working towards completing her supervised practice to become a qualified counsellor.
Before Sarah leaves, we are planning to do a sponsored spacehop between Silverknowes and Cramond on Saturday 13th July to raise funds for Amica. I've always wanted to do this for a charity, and we have bought special adult sized spacehoppers especially for this event - neither of us have been on a spacehopper since we were kids, and we're hoping that our bouncing skills will return to us quickly during our practice sessions over the next month!
Managing a charity is not a part-time job (even if it says so on your contract) and we most definitely wouldn't have been here for the last four years if we weren't passionate about the work Amica does. In the last 4 years we've seen the rate of terminations decrease in Edinburgh, but also seen our client workload increase each year at Amica. In 2013 we are busier than ever!
Even with a fabulous team of volunteers, it costs a lot of money to keep our services going. All of our support services are completely free but we have to pay rent, telephone and internet lines, advertising (so people can find us) and pay for training and volunteer travel expenses so we can continue to give a professional service to everyone who we come into contact with.
There are not many charities like Amica where people faced with an unintended pregnancy can come and know that they are in safe place where they'll be listened to, and supported no matter what they decide to do, without judgment or agenda.
The other huge part of our work is pregnancy loss support. There isn't a week that goes by when we don't have people meeting their one-to-one counselling support workers as they go through recovery from a miscarriage or termination.
And we can't forget our Empathy Belly! We would love to receive more funding, volunteers and opportunities to share this amazing resource with even more teens (and adults...because we know from the teachers that they like to try it out too when schools out for the day!)
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.
If you do not wish for your donation to be able to be found publicly, there will be the options given on what details you are happy to be shown on the page - you can give anonymously!
So please dig deep and donate now.
Thank you!!
Laurie & Sarah