When there’s no-one else there’s NODA
NODA Ayrshire is a third sector service gaining charity status in 2018. NODA Ayrshire, originally No One Dies Alone Ayrshire, was focused on supporting people and families at end of life. However, through the past eight years we have naturally evolved into NODA Ayrshire as there is now a much wider range of support we offer our community.
Ensuring we can be there to provide support and presence for the terminally ill or palliative patients is at the heart of NODA Ayrshire. Vigiling can be a very daunting task but is a privilege to undertake. We have a group of wonderful volunteers who give their time to provide the person and family with a calming presence and knowledge around the process of death and who provide some essential end of life care items with our Sandy’s Toolbox. We provide our volunteers with in-depth training and continually support them in their role to allow them to hold space for people at the most crucial time in their lives.
End of life care is at the heart of what we do, however, our service has naturally evolved to continue to support the family with their grief after their loved one has passed. This proved to be a pivotal moment for NODA as it raised a lot of questions about how we process our grief and what we do with that grief. This is where our bereavement support instinctively came into fruition. We supported through bereavement groups and one to one support in the community. This was an opportunity to network with other services and we were truly grateful for this opportunity and support that helped our foundation to grow.
And grow we did. After working from home, using other venues, and meeting out in the community, we came to the realisation that having our own base could really allow us to grow and to support our wider community. We opened the NODA Ayrshire Wellbeing Centre in January 2025 and have created a strong network of support through holistic and psychotherapeutic services.
Every day there is something wonderful happening in the Wellbeing Centre, from the office where the day to day running happens, to the meeting room where we hold our support groups. From bereavement to general support, we have our relaxing sanctuary where our holistic therapies such as reiki and KCR, among others, take place. We have our therapy room to create a safe space for any psychotherapeutic therapies such as CBT, EMDR and Hypnotherapy. Our ‘talking bench’ outside also allows us to access members of the community who may not be ready to walk through the door, but can sit on the bench where someone from our team can go out and support them or accompany them inside.
The value of our services is priceless to the families and individuals that need us and if anyone can help us sustain our organisation long term, please get in touch at www.nodaa.org.uk
