10 years at Salmon: Vicky’s story

I used to come to Salmon with my school once a week. I went to a special needs school for my dyslexia, called Spa School. I found out I had dyslexia when I was about 12 after they did an assessment. I could read and write but I would get stuck on certain words. The primary school I went to couldn’t be bothered to help, or the secondary school so they moved me to Spa.

In my heart I felt I shouldn’t be in that school. I felt like I never had special needs. Reading and writing wasn’t special needs, it’s just one of those things. I didn’t feel like I belonged in there. I made a couple of friends but I mainly kept myself to myself.

Salmon was quite big when I first came. In the old building there were two floors of football pitches, which I loved. Football was my only thing at the time but I started getting into other things. I kept coming back every week. I felt okay when I was at Salmon.

Going to college

At 16, I went to Southwark College to study Catering. The course I wanted to do in sports was full up so I chose something else. I can cook well but only when I feel like it. I didn’t finish the course; I ended up dropping out of college because of family issues.

Spa School got me into judo and martial arts to release everything at the time. I started competing when one of the coaches spotted me and said I was quite good. I’ve won the nationals at Judo, where you represent your club at a national level, and I’ve come second out of 20 people. I plan to get all my badges for judo and my NVQ Level 1 & 2 so I can start my own judo club in future.

Coming back to Salmon

I ended up coming back to Salmon because I knew one of the employees, Sam, who used to be one of my teachers at Spa – he wasn’t the Director of Salmon then. I spoke to him and asked him if they had any volunteer positions going at Salmon. He said come down and try it out and I just kept it up ever since. I tried out 6-9s volunteering first, then football coaching, then doing the other sessions. The volunteering kept me busy and out of trouble.

I didn’t know if I would like working with young people or not but I just kept it up and I really enjoy it now. Seeing the 6-9s going home happy makes me feel great. I also pick up the kids for Mixables club and do drop-offs back to their homes. We do pickups of some of the kids from Spa, my old school, so sometimes it feels weird going there.

Becoming a staff member

I’ve now been volunteering at Salmon for 10 years. A few years into my volunteering, Sam put me forward for the cleaning role here at Salmon, which I’ve been doing on a part-time basis for the past seven or eight years. I work at Salmon five days a week doing cleaning, and four of those days doing volunteering. I do an hour a day of cleaning.

If it wasn’t for Salmon, I would just be hanging around the streets getting up to no good or I’d be sitting indoors watching boring telly. What I like most about Salmon is that if I’m down I can speak to any member of staff and they would listen. Salmon is like my second home and my second family.