Bookself Mojatu.com Mojatu Nottingham Magazine Issue M025 | Page 20

20 Faith & Spirituality mojatu .com Nottingham Senior Support - By Fikula Madiya Nottingham Senior Support Group is here for older people from any African community in Nottingham. Senior Support exists to work with the over 55s to be a source of advice and information, of friendship, and of opportunities to be active and to socialise. We respect our community elders but the UK lifestyle with its pressures of work sometimes mean that our elders get isolated, lonely, and cut-off from life. Senior Support takes that pressure away. To make the group more successful we need to get more members. The more over 55s who join us, the better our sessions will be and the more friends they will make. Our volunteers speak the African languages that your elders need so they can communicate and be comfortable. ask guest speakers to come and talk about subjects of interest to our members. Please think about the elders in your community and family and tell them about our group. Ask them to call Madiya on 07538 544374 to find out more. The weekly sessions take place at the ‘Life at the Centre’ church on Lower Parliament Street opposite the Victoria Centre on Wednesday mornings between 10am and 12 midday. With your help we aim to have 50 members by the end of August 2017. We meet every week in the city centre to socialise as a group and to help one another with advice and information. Our Senior Support volunteers also do home visits and can provide help over the telephone. We organise day trips and gentle exercise activities. We The Sunken Place It’s easy to become frustrated with the space between now and and what is to be. You began your degree 4 years ago, but the wait to finally graduate is driving you crazy. You wrote a business plan 6 months ago but 6months later, the vision is failing to materialise. What’s worse is others around you are fulfilling the dreams you so desperately want to come to life, and although you congratulate and wish them well, an aching sense of disappointment and discontent lingers within. The main cause of this is a loss of focus. Our tunnel vision gets dislodged because we become distracted by others finishing before us, or we give up prematurely. The key is to remember exactly why you started in the first place, and reflect on how far you’ve come. Perhaps By Angela Mwaniki Mugo you started later because a ground breaking idea that will of yours needed to time to mature into what it is today. The feeling of discontent is one I know all the well about. I struggled with the unleashed potential within me – but wasn’t willing to accept that it simply wasn’t time for it to be birthed. It forced me to learn how to be patient and appreciate the present for what it is, while hoping for the future. It’s important to honour the space between now and better. The present is not necessarily a failed or stagnant state, it is simply not what is it come. Nevertheless, it is still worth celebrating. All the fruits of your labour: the stress, frustration, late nights and tears will soon be rewarded, if only you hold on.