A 72-year-old retired teacher, a 20-year-old engineering student, NHS nurses and an Indian technician are among 13,000 ‘happy faces’ serving as volunteers at the ongoing Commonwealth Games here. Many of them are sports enthusiasts while others want to give back to “Birmingham”, a city that has been nice to them.
Volunteers are essential to the success of any major sporting event and come from all walks of life, they do all they can to ‘make a difference’.
“I’ve never done anything like this. I wanted to do my part for the city where I have lived all my life. I’m retired now, I don’t want to go (die) sitting in a chair, sipping hot chocolate and watching TV. “I want to stay in a fast-paced environment until the end. You want to keep working,” Barry Leig Prever, 72, told PTI.
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Interested persons were required to register for the volunteer program last year with a minimum age requirement of 18 years. No upper limit has been set, as is usually the case in multi-sport events. As this is not a paid job, participating in the Games is a major attraction.
Amitabh Shrivastava, who has worked with tech giant Wipro in the UK for nine years, is a self-proclaimed badminton fan. After doing his shift for the day, he came to watch India play against South Africa in the badminton arena at the National Exhibition Centre.
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“I love badminton. PV Sindhu is my favorite player. With this I can serve the city of Bimingham and also guide the athletes in a modest way,” said the 50-year-old from Jaipur. Nurses from the UK’s National Health Service are also among the medical services NHS workers have been hailed for their selfless work at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve seen the worst during the pandemic as nurses and now that things are back to normal it’s fantastic to be in an environment like this. You meet so many people and also serve society,” said 60-year-old Wolverhampton resident Justine North. A full-time photographer based in London and a doctoral candidate in sports science is also part of the concert.
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“I’m doing my doctorate in sports science and this event is all about sports. It’s also a melting pot and you meet people from all over the world,” added Georgia, 24.
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