Aberdeen charity looking for grandparents willing to share life skills with youngsters

An Aberdeen-based charity is looking for older volunteers to help younger generations.

YourLoveRara wants to find “grandparents” who are willing to help families in need and keen to share their life skills.

Founder Zara Grant said: “We can’t take any more young volunteers on board unless we have those grandparent figures, or our mums and dads that can come help support them and give them new skills.”

Ms Grant started YourLoveRara in Aberdeen 11 years ago and was inspired by her own struggles to help others in difficult situations.

She told STV News: “I moved here when I was 19 so I kind of understand the whole isolation, also being homeless when I was younger, I feel like I connect with so many people and I just wanted a platform to bring everybody together.”

The charity supports people struggling with the cost of living crisis.

Now they need volunteers, particularly those over 16, who can act as mentors in helping younger generations learn life skills.

Holly Irvine started out as a volunteer and eventually ended up becoming permanent staff.

She said: “We have such a big focus on the future for our volunteers. We’re very passionate about that, even people who are no longer volunteering with us, we try and check up on them. If opportunities come up, we’ll always think of them if it’s relevant.”

Originally the charity was based at Aberdeen’s beach leisure centre, but they had to move into the city centre due to demolition work.

Ms Grant says it’s been a struggle to return to how things were previously.

She said: “The finance of the overheads, the rent, the electric, they’re a lot. So that’s why we kind of try to team up with other charities to make sure that we survive.

“We have kind of struggled being here because a lot of people think that because the beach shut down, we shut down as well, so it’s taken quite a lot of time to get on our feet again.”