Juliet Richards – A passion for service
THE ‘hands of God’ is the term she uses to describe her selfless commitment to helping people, especially the elderly and those incapable of fending for themselves.
Juliet Richards, 48, told All Woman that as a child she enjoyed the company of elderly people, mainly because she witnessed her mother’s struggle to bring up eight children.
“The elderly embrace you with such gentleness, and they always have things you can gain knowledge from. I listened to my mother, and I didn’t want to be in a situation where I had children and couldn’t take care of them or struggle to make ends meet. So I said I would attach [myself] to more mature individuals who could really encourage me,” she explained.
And so, at 10 years old, Richards began volunteering her services at a church near her home in Kingston, where she would visit shut-in members and assist in whatever way she could.
“Many of them didn’t have family other than the church, so I would go and speak to them and comb their hair. My mother always said, ‘Why you always going over there?’, and I didn’t know why I continued going. I just loved the company of the elderly. Little did I know it would become my passion, but gradually as I grew I realised and I stuck to that,” she said.
Although Richards is not currently employed, she continues to serve the elderly — an activity she describes as a service unto God.
“When I came to know Christ I looked around and there were many elderly people and I tried to see what to do to help. Many of them said they didn’t have anything and felt lonely, but I reassured them that I am their daughter, and I really go out of my way to see that they are comfortable. I don’t have to have much to help. They don’t always need material things. At times it’s just to have company, someone to go with them to hospital or pay a bill,” she said.
A trained practical nurse, Richards also cares for her deceased sister’s three children and a student who has a brain disorder.
She is a registered volunteer at the Red Cross and takes pride in feeding street people in and around Spanish Town.
“Sometimes I go into restaurants and see people chasing homeless people out. It breaks my heart. I usually give them a seat and get them something to eat. My mother is always worried that something will happen to me, but I have to explain to her that I talk to these people all the while and share things with them,” Richards explained.
Richards recently completed a business course at Heart Trust Institute in St Andrew, and part of her course involved identifying and starting an entrepreneurial project, which for her was a mobile health care system which she has been trying to get on stream since last September.
Subsequently, because of a nomination by her church sister, she received monetary assistance and equipment for her business — such as first aid kits, blood pressure and blood sugar monitoring systems from the #JPSBeTheLight initiative.
A deaconess in her church, Richards subscribes to Philippians 1:29. In all her endeavours she will always put herself last, thinking about others before making a final decision.
