Meet our Session Leaders - Sham

After a while spent volunteering with us as a Conservation Volunteer on Hampstead Heath, Shamanthy joined our team as a Session Leader in September 2020. Sham writes about how she has been finding her first few months working at Heath Hands.

As has been the case for most people, 2020 has been a year of a lot of self-reflection for me. It was the year I took out from working in the civil service for nearly 11 years to focus on my health and to reconsider what I do for work. I adapted to city living in London very quickly after moving here in 2007, a far cry from where I grew up in Sri Lanka surrounded by tropical greenery and hills. But in recent years I have spent more and more time outdoors, learning to appreciate the beauty of nature in Europe which feels very different to what I grew up around yet is as vibrant and wild in many places. This last year has the opportunity to really immerse myself in being outside and doing physical activities and being fortunate enough to live just off Highgate Road, a significant part of this has been on the heath. Volunteering with Heath Hands on the conservation sessions became an essential part of my weekly routine. I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know the warm and welcoming Heath Hands staff and volunteer community and so jumped at the opportunity to become one of the new Session Leaders!

Making hedgehog boxes with volunteers in the Hive Yard.

So far my work has been quite varied, ranging from filling up water for hedgehogs earlier in the year, to litter picking on Monday mornings, shadowing and then leading some of the wildlife home sessions and even doing a guided walk for some mums and toddlers .

I’ve really enjoyed the activities so far, to be able to work outside and be amongst trees and plants feels like a blessing, especially in the days of COVID! I’ve been amazed at all of the knowledge of the staff and volunteers, learning about the the history of the heath, and discovering parts of the heath that I haven’t been to. A special highlight so far was to be shown some of the tiny sock-like nests of the Atypus spiders on the Vale of Health by Jo. It was very nice to see what all our hard work in grubbing/clearing out brambles was protecting! Another was to spot some beautiful specimens of amanita mushrooms in October, also on the Vale of Health.

I’ve also really enjoyed learning about the broad and diverse range of work being done on the Heath such as the wildlife monitoring programmes. I’m looking forward the day that I can spot a grass snake under one of the covers! I’m also really looking forward to getting back to doing more work and meeting more of the volunteers in the near future.

Meeting some of our dedicated volunteers for a Heath Walk.