Volunteer Profile: Andrew Hui

What part of the province do you live in?

The part of the province I live in is Edmonton the capital city of Alberta

How and why did you first get involved with JHC (the community response initiative)?

I first got involved with JHC through their YEG Community response initiative when I saw the group on my Facebook home page and I decided to join to see what the group was about and to see how other people in Edmonton were reacting to Covid-19 and soon I saw a post that they were looking for volunteers so I applied in hopes of being accepted.

What is your current role within JHC?

My current role with JHC a volunteer with JHC's YEG Response to Covid-19 Facebook group as a member of the admin team, Resources team, IT team and ISO (In search of the team). Recently I also was hired as an outreach worker for the Edmonton COVID -19 Rapid Response Collaborative (ECRRC) and I am extremely thankful for that as I think I didn't start volunteering with JHC I would not have had the opportunity to be hired in such a role. 

What are your (volunteer) activities and what do they involve?

My volunteer activities include monitoring the Facebook group, managing the Discord which we use our communication service, helping dispatch and post-ISO's, find and post news/resources, monitoring the group's activity and seeing if there is any suspicious activity and if so discuss with other members of the admin team among other things as I would say my role is extremely flexible and I help out in anyways I can.

How long have you been a part of the community response initiative?

I have been part of the community response initiative since April 2020.

What's it like to be a volunteer for this cause?

I would say volunteering for this cause is amazing as I feel happy and proud that I have been able to help out in whatever way I can during the pandemic that we are all still in and you can see how thankful some people are that you are volunteering and helping out with such an initiative.

What has surprised you most about working on this community initiative?

What has surprised me the most about working on this Community initiative has to be realizing how many people I have impacted by putting my time to volunteer for such an initiative and all the brilliant people I have been able to meet online volunteering.

Are there any learnings/ challenges you have experienced through this work? Please tell us about those

There have been a few challenges I have experienced through this work. The first one was getting used to volunteering online as before that all of my community volunteering has been in person and more hands-on such as volunteering for the Foodbank, the Edmonton Police Service, and summer camps. Another challenge was not getting burned out as during the pandemic not having much to do I found myself spending almost all of my time volunteering for this initiative in some capacity and while it was manageable for the first few months I soon started to get burnout and that was a challenge for me to overcome and find a solution too. Another one was also handling my increased responsibility as an admin member as at the start I didn't know what to exactly do and if I would fit in the admin team but now I would say I fit in the admin team perfectly and help out whenever I can with my skillset.