Milena is from Italy and lives in London. She is multilingual, but mainly helps English and Italian-speakers on Be My Eyes. Since seeing a post from a friend on Facebook about his experience volunteering on app, Milena has been a part of the Be My Eyes community for a couple years. Her son also spends time volunteering on the app, and the two love exchanging stories about their experience and joy in helping other people.
Milena appreciates the freedom to choose her schedule and finds comfort knowing that if she cannot answer, another volunteer is on it. She insists the app is simply and useful, no matter the task. Milena helped a woman find a lost wedding ring, match socks together for another gentleman and even scan a dog-owner’s back porch to make sure it was clean. What Milena finds interesting is where the app can send you and who you get connected with. She recalls a time that she answered to a woman in Sicily and the two of them exchanged a laugh about being native Italian speakers in different parts of the world and chatted for a while about the app before helping with a task.
The way Milena sees it, users and volunteers are not more or less fortunate than other another. Everyone needs help and everyone can give it. She shares,
It’s hard to think that there are people in the world who are not so lucky - I think humanity needs solidarity. We need to love and help other people.