Caring Kamey gives out cash for healthy causes
| Published: 21st August 2007 16:54 |
Kamey McNamara
On Friday 17th August your editor visited the Stockport CVS - Impact office to have a chat with Kamey who is their frontline Impact Co-ordinator.
Kamey McNamara is responsible for helping people throughout the whole of Stockport to become healthier. She runs the Impact Groups which are funded by the NHS, and is based at Stockport CVS. Impact provides funding for anyone in the community that wants to start up a new group or initiative that has a health related theme such as starting up an exercise group, opening up an allotment or even buying a bench in a park for people to use.
She helps groups to start these ideas by giving them funds, but also gives guidance on how to sustain the project once it has started up. I ask her how do people react when she tells them she can fund groups and she says that quite often people can be suspicious as they wonder what the catch is? They are always grateful though when they find out that their project, which has to improve the health of the community in some way, has received Impact funds and it's brilliant to be able to help groups do the great job they do.
Kamey has always had a keen interest in health and has completed a diploma course in Anatomy & Physiology and also in Reflexology. She has also completed a foundation course in Nutrition and hopes to study this subject further.
Kamey deeply cares about children in care so she has become a volunteer Independent Visitor for Manchester Children's Rights Service. She says "Looked after children sometimes prefer to talk and befriend someone who is a volunteer rather than an employee of the council, as they realise that volunteers want to be there for them and aren't getting paid for the role they do, so must really want to do it".
I asked Kamey what she thinks about the youngsters whose drunken behaviour is causing so many problems in society today? She believes "it's possibly because of a variety of issues ranging from bad, or lack of, parenting to boredom. Kamey thinks that the young people and parents need to have more involvement in the community and maybe we need to find out why they are mis-behaving and ask what they want?"
What are her plans for the future - "Maybe someday in the far future I may become a practitioner in Nutrition or Reflexology - I am planning to do reflexology as a volunteer soon."
When asked what her main ethos in life is Kamey says "People should support and look after each other and have lots of fun".
