People who live in rural counties like Leitrim and Cavan are now being invited to consider volunteering for the Aware charity which supports people impacted by depression and bipolar disorder.
The charity says it's seen a significant spike in the number of people reaching out for support and information in recent years and they want to recruit more volunteers for their phone service by the end of the year.
Since 2020 and the advance of remote working software during the pandemic, Aware says geography isn't a limiting factor once on board training has been completed.
Laurence Smith is Aware Support Line Manager, she says the remote volunteering is working well and they're very happy to be able to accept volunteers from outside Dublin:
"People can work from home, which has opened up Aware so much that we can provide the service nationwide, so we have volunteers across Ireland which I think is excellent. So people can do this from their own home, we would use an app that would be downloaded to your phone and that's all. Once you have a stable internet connection, and you have a desktop or smartphone, you can do this. You don't need to travel into Dublin. At the moment, we have about 120 active volunteers on the support line, about 30-40% would be based nationwide."
