During an Alpha course, Louise Oldfield found out about a charity called The Nelson Trust and immediately felt an overwhelming calling and a sense that her past experience had been preparing her for this work.
Louise said: “As a person with lived experience of trauma and thankfully now living in recovery, I can see that my experiences have prepared me to help women who are going through similar situations.”
She now works as a Peer Mentor Coordinator at the organisation: “After the Alpha course, I looked at the Nelson Trust’s website and read a quote that said, ‘we hold hope for people until they can hold it for themselves’. I got emotional when I read this – it really resonated with me. It drove me to pursue my calling, leading me to today, where I’m now living it out,” she said.
As Peer Mentor Coordinator, Louise’s role involves training and supporting women with lived experiences of trauma to become peer mentors themselves.
She said: “I walk alongside them, providing a safe, supportive, trauma-informed approach.”
The Nelson Trust offers practical and emotional support to women experiencing homelessness, domestic abuse, addiction, and other forms of trauma. They run lunch clubs, provide hot meals and washing facilities, clothes and toiletries, and most importantly, a safe space where women are seen, heard, and supported.
She said: “I firmly believe that people can recover, and they do recover, to go on and live fulfilling lives. It’s about being a voice to the voiceless, being a light in the darkness and holding the hope for women until they can hold it for themselves. It’s about really being there, breaking the shame, showing compassion and mercy when it’s needed the most.”
Although The Nelson Trust is a not a Christian organisation, faith is what guides Louise in her work.
“Faith is what keeps me in this job more than anything else. I pray when I wake up in the morning, over the day when I feel like people need prayer, and then at the end of the day,” she said. “My work is a lived expression of my faith as well. What we do is love, mercy and compassion in action – as Jesus walked alongside people who needed healing, so do we at The Nelson Trust.
“My spirituality helps me to stay grounded. It helps just being that guiding principle. Everything that we do is is based around the fact that we serve other people, and at The Nelson Trust, we are compassionate, loving, understanding, non judgmental. We give women a voice.”
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