Voluntary Work

An important part of my engagement takes place within the self-help organization ILCO. ILCO is a self-help organization supporting people with ostomies, patients with colorectal cancer, and their relatives. There, I am active in the visiting service, accompanying people with colorectal cancer and ostomies, as well as their relatives, during hospital stays. I also facilitate a local self-help group and serve on the board of the ILCO regional association of North Rhine–Westphalia.

For these tasks, we receive targeted training within ILCO. The foundation of our work is personal experience. From my own experience, I know how helpful conversations can be that do not have to be conducted in a medical framework. It is precisely this shared background that enables encounters on an equal footing. At the center are listening, orientation and the sharing of experiences in a situation that, for many, is initially marked by uncertainty and open questions.

In addition, I support ILCO on a voluntary basis with my professional expertise from agency work. Design, structure and clear communication also play an important role here—because information is only helpful when it is accessible and presented in a comprehensible way.

The experiences from this voluntary work shape my perspective on genealogical and documentary projects. They repeatedly remind me that behind data, diagnoses and life stages there are individual life stories. Especially in biographical and family history work, this attitude is essential: listening attentively, placing connections in context and presenting life paths respectfully and clearly—not as an abstract sequence of events, but as a coherent, narratable whole.