Peadar Ward, director of the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps, Dublin, manages 4,000 volunteers in his spare time
My role as director of the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps is entirely voluntary. During the day I work as a civil servant in the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources.
I do a lot of my Order of Malta work by email. I log on at home and deal with some emails before I go to work and I do the same again every evening. I regularly have meetings in the afternoon or evening and I am usually involved in some Order of Malta-related work on one or both days of the weekend.
My job is to manage and develop the ambulance corps. Of our 4,000 members, roughly 2,000 are junior members, called cadets, who are aged 10 to 16 years of age. The cadet section serves as a very important recruitment ground for our adult section. Roughly 60 per cent of our adult members began as cadets.
All 4,000 members of our organisation are voluntary. None of these people get paid for what they do. We have only four permanent staff.
We have 80 units, organised into six regions, throughout 32 counties. Each unit is self-sufficient and raises its own funds.
The regional directors along with chief ambulance officer, chief medical director, fundraiser director and assistant director of operation all meet regularly, and I chair these meetings.
The mission statement of the Order of Malta is to strive to make a difference in society. We are involved in community care, first aid and nursing service. We also engage in youth development and personal development. A recent undertaking is to provide training to the general public and industry in the use of Automated External Defibrillator (AED) machines to improve the ability of local communities to respond to heart problems.
We pay for our charitable work by charging for certain functions, such as the occupational first aid training we offer companies. We also attend major events, such as concerts, outdoor festivals and race meetings.
We use this income to pay for our charitable work. For example, last year we covered the Special Olympics. We provided 12,254 hours of work at the games. We treated 330 patients and transported 179 patients. This does not count the work done on the host town programme.
Every year we have a pilgrimage to Lourdes from Dublin and Knock. Our pilgrimage is renowned for taking people who are too ill to travel with any other organisation.
We have roughly the same number of volunteers as we had in the past, but they are giving less of their time. Job and study pressures, long journey times to work and two people in each family working outside the home means people have less time and are much more discerning in the number of hours they give.
I joined the Order of Malta when I was 14, in the way lots of fellas would have joined the scouts. I got very involved in the training aspect and was made director in 2000. I thoroughly enjoy my work and wouldn't be doing it otherwise. There is great satisfaction in knowing you can help people.