I've worked for Cedar for 10 years and I'm the Community Inclusion Officer with the West Belfast Living Options (WBLO) team. I put together action plans for individual service users to achieve their goals within the community e.g. volunteering, attending classes/courses, exercising, socialising or various other activities they are interested in.  It really involves supporting service users to maintain their interest and to regularly attend their chosen activity.  This means that every day is different depending on who I am supporting, but I am always busy.

it gives me the opportunity to enhance the quality of life for our service users and also to liaise and advocate on their behalf so as to remove any barriers which may prevent them from attaining goals.

"A very proud moment for me during my role with Cedar was when I won an award in June 2019 at the Learning Disability and Autism Awards for "Breaking Down Barriers" and I was delighted to come first in my section.  It was a good year for Cedar as a colleague, Kyle Scott also won The Support Worker Award".

Another highlight was volunteering at Belfast City Marathon last May 2019 with 8 of our service users. We were based at the finish line distributing medals to all the participants.  Each and every one of our service users thoroughly enjoyed the experience and also received their own medals for volunteering.

The last few months (with Covid-19) have meant that activities etc in the Community have been put on hold temporarily so we have been organising so many in-house activities to maintain the health and wellbeing of all our service users. I have been blown away by how they have all coped with isolating and staying at home. They are constantly telling me how much they are enjoying spending time with their co-tenants outside. The staff team and service users in WBLO have been an absolute pleasure to work alongside during these trying times.

When I'm not working I really enjoy travelling a few times a year. I also enjoy walking, tennis and gardening. Anything that involves being outdoors is right up my street. 

I often get asked about my unusual name! So just to put the record straight, my name is of Sudanese origin and there is a small village on the Sudan/ Egypt border called Meroe. Having said that I have no connection with Africa, my parents must have thought it would be a bit different.  I laugh to think how many different variations I've come across over the years such as Memorary, Merona, Merore or Mero!

  

Featured as part of the Supported Living 'Cedar in the Spotlight' campaign