Meet our Volunteers: Anja Hegewald

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We are starting a new feature in our newsletter to feature our wonderful volunteers! This month, we chatted with Anja Hegewald.

Name: Anja Hegewald

Email address: anja@zharity.ch

I am a Colombian-German woman, who grew up in Berlin. I moved to Switzerland in 2010.  I have three children born in 2014, 2016 and 2018, so I am now a part-time working mom.  

What personal motivations drew you to charity work? 

My family never had much money while I was growing up.  Nevertheless giving and helping others was one of our family values for as long as I can remember. Becoming a mother and getting older may also have made me more sensitive to certain societal problems. I believe that everything we do we get back somehow, it’s not totally reciprocal, but sooner or later positive vibes come back as positive things.

How did you get involved in Zharity?

Kim van Wissen sent an email in May 2015 over the Spoogler list with an idea that appealed to me: “…. we have built a nice & comfortable life for ourselves. Switzerland/Google has been more than good to us and lately I'm strongly feeling the need to pay it forward!...” People who were interested, including me, answered and very quickly we were a core of people forming concrete plans from Kim’s idea. So, to make a long story short, from the beginning I was a part of this group that grew from an idea to an association with very dedicated volunteers and amazing projects. For me it was also very appealing that you could come with your own ideas and that as we are all volunteers, it’s totally ok if there are times where you have less time (e.g. after giving birth). Zharity is far from static. It changes with the people who are running the projects and that keeps it quite interesting.  

What projects are you working on right now?

It’s again that time of the year…For the fourth time we’re collaborating with the Caritas Toy Exchange. Kids donate two toys and get a voucher which at the toy exchange event they can use to choose “a new” toy. Children of families who can not afford to donate toys get a voucher for free. At the day of the event it’s a wonderful mixture of children who are all happy about their toys. There is also a nice programme with activities like handcrafting, painting, and games, as well as free popcorn and syrup. By the way, we still need some volunteers to run the crafting table or who would like to bake for the event. Contact me at anja@zharity.ch if you’d like to join us! 

Zharity is always happy to have new volunteers and it’s  a nice opportunity to connect to nice people.