We had a chat to Sonia Hancock this week about her involvement with Bell House and her life in Dulwich. She told us all about her work with the ESOL project, what she’s doing with her grandchildren (from afar!) during lockdown and how she’s keeping busy. We hope you enjoy getting to know her better with the first of our volunteer profiles.
What is your role as a volunteer?
It’s really multi-faceted! At the beginning, the focus was really on dyslexia and that was my reason for getting involved, but the ESOL [English for Speakers of Other Languages] project is the latest thing I’ve been working on. It’s just so nice being involved. I loved the journal-writing group that ran with Wendy, a poet, at the start of this year for young parents. Invariably one of the babies would play up and then you could have a cuddle, while the parents continued.
How long have you been involved with Bell House?
I think I started about two-and-a-half or three years ago – right at the beginning – and it was certainly the dyslexia which interested me immediately. There are so many different aspects to the dyslexia work, like the after-school club and touch-typing courses. The touch-typing courses are quite amusing because, as you can imagine, with ten- and eleven-year-olds, if they can find a shortcut and they think you’re not looking, they’ll take the shortcut and you have to be really alert!
How long have you lived in the area and what drew you here?
We actually didn’t choose Dulwich. We had a friend who was emigrating to Canada and he said to us one day, ‘I’m selling a house in Dulwich.’ And we said, ‘Where’s that?’. He told us to come and have a look at it – he thought we might want to buy it. We came and the rest, as they say, is history. We’ve lived here on and off for forty-eight years. We spent twenty years away at one point, but here we are, back again, and we’re not moving anywhere now!
What are you working on at the moment? Can you tell us a bit more about the ESOL project?
I’ve been working on the ESOL project at Bell House, which started about six months ago. We came up with the idea that we’d like to do more with asylum seekers and refugees, and we thought, ‘Well, what can we offer? What are their needs?’. And language was the obvious one. Bell House did a lot of research and came up with a pilot project in collaboration with English for Action (EFA). You never know how many students are coming – it could be five, it could be fifteen – and Georgina, the EFA teacher, seems completely unfazed by that. Karen and I have been helping at almost every session, once a week for about two-and-a-half hours, to support the learning. The students clearly love it, which is fantastic – we get really positive feedback from them.
Recently, one asylum seeker, who had no English at all, came along, so I suggested to Georgina that I take him separately and work with him. We were literally starting from the basics, ‘My name is…’, but he was very anxious to learn and it’s frustrating that the current situation had to stop all that.
We’ve been able to provide feedback on the sessions to project coordinator Mike about what’s working and what doesn’t work. When you’re doing something like this as a volunteer it’s immensely rewarding to know that your voice is a voice that’s heard – that’s been very positive and I think that’s why we’ve worked well as a team.
Are there any forthcoming events or initiatives that you’re excited about? Presumably you really want to get up and running with the ESOL work again as soon as possible!
Well, as it happens, this morning I’ve been making a video, with my husband filming me. We’re going to be making videos for the students – fairly basic. The idea was that I would have a tea party. We did a trial video that I’m about to send Mike, which is hilarious. It’s all about using key words and then we’ll do some worksheets to go along with it.
What do you do away from Bell House? What are your hobbies and interests?
Well, currently, of course, it’s all very different. Normally I read a lot and do a lot of walking. In fact, at the back of our house there are playing fields and I think I know every blade of grass there now. We do our 10,000 steps a day and our neighbours all do the same thing. All the things I thought I was going to be doing during lockdown I’m not doing as I’ve found it very difficult to settle down. I’m doing more practical things like painting the garden shed and lots of gardening.
I’ve also been cooking with my eight grandchildren on Zoom. We all have the same recipe and we measure out the ingredients and prepare the cake or whatever it is we are making. When it goes in the oven we have a break then return to Zoom and all eat the goodies we've made together. It’s fun and it keeps me in touch with them, especially the two who live in Madrid. They have asked to run the next session teaching us all how to make tortilla!
I love theatre too. We have a theatre group – five couples – and we’ve been going to the theatre together every two months for about twenty years. During this time, we’re watching the National Theatre online together on Zoom. I enjoy going to the Picture Gallery too, and because we live very close to Rocca it’s terribly easy to wander up there for a supper when I say, ‘There’s nothing in the fridge...’. Rocca has been very useful over the years!
What do you think you bring to Bell House as a volunteer and what do you get out of it?
I hope that I bring a willingness to try my hand at things, and what I get out of it are bucketfuls of pleasure, of the feel-good factor – actually feeling I’m doing something worthwhile. There’s a lot of camaraderie and, largely thanks to Abbey and others, you cannot arrive at the front door without feeling totally embraced. The welcome is always so warm and that means a huge amount. As soon as you walk into Bell House there’s this lovely feeling of warmth and a ‘let’s-try-something’ spirit. I just love it, I love the atmosphere.
I think people should know how inclusive Bell House is to all the volunteers. It cares about them, nurtures them, which an awful lot of organisations don’t. We have lunches or teas in the garden and it’s an opportunity to get together and enjoy ourselves and I think people really, really appreciate that, because it shows that we are valued, and we all need to be valued in life.