Chances are if you had put that question to Auntie Olga weeks ago, she would have replied: “Any time is the right time.”
It’s highly likely she would have added: “And put some passion and commitment into it.”
No, the question has nothing to do with marriage, politics, sex or going into business. Instead, at its core is the idea of volunteering, giving back and showing in a tangible way that we care, without thinking of monetary rewards or even public accolades.
Auntie Olga, as most people in and out of Barbados preferred to call the late Dame Olga Lopes-Seale, would have been the right person to provide the answer.
Good example
Why? The examples she set in her life’s work behind the microphone and away from the studio made her the quintessential volunteer.
For through her campaigns for children and the less fortunate in society, Auntie Olga demonstrated how, based on the principle of using one’s skill, experience and public acceptance, we can make a substantial difference.
We have thousands of people in Barbados and the diaspora in North America and Britain who have embraced that noble principle, giving of their time, expertise, contacts and other human resources to social causes and in the process are serving a greater good.
The trouble is that we don’t have enough volunteers and society can certainly do with many more people like Auntie Olga.
We may complain almost daily about the service at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital or the polyclinics but how many are volunteering their time to help remove hurdles and improve the quality of care?
Unfortunately, far too few professionals, including some who often rubbed shoulders with Auntie Olga as she worked to improve things for groups in our country, have taken a leaf out of her book by using their public presence, appeal and access to the organs of mass communication to help people cope with privation or even to illuminate the path to personal development.
We know, for instance, what Harold Hoyte of the Nation and One Caribbean Media and Vic Fernandes of Starcom Network Inc. have done and are doing to break the time-worn stereotype of volunteers as being simply helpers.
Instead, they are showing how volunteerism influences positive and often dynamic change.
That was a lesson Auntie Olga taught all of us, to be something of a conscience, a change-maker of society.
It is certainly legitimate to ask how many of our prominent public figures in and out of parliament who thrive on public acceptance can be identified as volunteers.
Admittedly, some do it quietly but more can take the plunge.
More to learn
The private sector too can learn some important lessons from Auntie Olga’s life.
It’s true that some businesses already make annual contributions to worthy causes.
But they can go a step further by encouraging employees to become volunteers through matching funds donated to worthy causes.
In a reflection on Auntie Olga’s work, Lennox Price, Barbados’ Consul General at New York, said that she encouraged him and the Friends of Barbados Democratic Labour Party Association to contribute to her work.
“We in the association decided to give clothes and other things to Auntie Olga’s charitable effort for the poor because of the impact it was having on Barbadians,” Price said.
“She showed she was concerned about the plight of children and that she wanted to make a difference, to change things.
That’s something she taught many of us.”
In essence, it was about being our brother’s and sister’s keeper.
