An update from your Ambassador, Katrina

Hi everyone, it’s Katrina here, your Ambassador at get2gether. I’m writing this blog to let you know what I’ve been up to lately.

Over the past 5 weeks, I have been doing a leadership course on Zoom with Elaine Crichton from Inspiring Scotland and Catriona Rowley from SCLD. My colleague and manager Marion asked if I would be interested in taking part in the course and I was really keen to get involved.

There’s me and another 9 people on the course and we each have a sponsor. Gillian, who is the administrator at get2gether, is my sponsor – but I call her my buddy! Each week we have a task to do and it has been quite interesting because we have to feed back on our answers each week. This week’s task was to write a vision statement for myself. Here is what I wrote:

My vision statement is that throughout my life I always dreamt of having a paid job. I am living my dream as I have a paid job at get2gether. Through my work as an ambassador at get2gether, I want to inspire other people with learning disabilities to believe that a paid job is a possibility and can be a reality for them too.  As I never believed I would and look at me now. I was told at high school that I wouldn’t get a job. I want to influence other organisations out there in the world to provide opportunities for people with disabilities. I am proof that if you are given an opportunity to get paid work, that if I can demonstrate doing a great job, that people with learning disabilities can too. I feel proud to be earning a living wage. I know that at the end of each month I’ve worked hard for it. I feel on top of the world and I want other people with learning disabilities like myself to feel the same too.

On the course, I’ve been learning a lot about what a leader is. There are quite different examples of being a leader and we have been looking at how you can demonstrate these skills by being a leader in your personal life as well as at work. In terms of get2gether, I feel that I am taking a lead because at the Monday planning meeting, I actually lead a group of members and ask what members would like to do.

The course is going really well. So far so good – I’m enjoying it!

I hope you are all staying safe and keeping well and I hope to catch you at some get2gether events soon.