Find out more about project officer Rebecca Robinson, the toolkit she's building to support older workers, her commitment to protecting human rights, and fondness for empty beaches...

Tell us a bit about what you do in IHW

I work as the Project Coordinator for WOW – Wellbeing for Older Workers. My role – which started the week after lockdown! - is to create a toolkit and a series of webinars/workshops. 

What do you enjoy about your role? 

I’ve really enjoyed working with Nicola McMeekin and Janet Bouttell (chairs of WOW) and the whole WOW group and have felt very welcomed and supported. So far, I’ve enjoyed most aspects of my role and have really appreciated the unexpected opportunity to be involved in a research project and am looking forward to working with an artist-in-residence SGSAH doctoral student intern. The IHW seems a lovely place to work - even remotely!

What are the challenges?

The main challenge is creating a toolkit that contains information that is useful and engaging – I’m hoping that our newly appointed artist-in-residence will help create some interesting images and videos.

I’ve really appreciated the opportunities I’ve been given and the openness to creativity and ideas.

What is the best thing about working in IHW?

Apart from the lovely people, I’ve been struck by the IHW’s commitment to Athena Swan and its progressive approach to inclusivity and diversity. I’ve worked at Glasgow University for a number of years and haven’t experienced before the sense that I get at the IHW of the real desire to put those ideas in to practice. I’ve also really appreciated the opportunities that I’ve been given and the openness to creativity and ideas.

Tell us something we might not know about you, or would surprise us

Before joining Glasgow University as a mature student I worked in theatre (not the medical kind!) – I once worked in Malawi and toured East Africa with the national dance company in an old army truck until it crashed in Zambia and we had to spend the night on the roof before hitching a lift to Lusaka the next morning.

When or where are you happiest? 

It’s a very close tie between walking for miles along an empty beach with the sun beating down and my daughter by my side, or bringing in the New Year at home with family and close friends.

Any secret – or not so secret! – ambitions?

I have a Masters degree in Human Rights Law and always dreamt of being a human rights lawyer for Amnesty International. Having studied law, I no longer dream of being a lawyer, but I do still harbour a clearly not-very-secret wish to work to protect human rights.

Do you have a favourite quote or saying, or mantra by which you try to live your life? 

My family have never been very good at sayings – we all tend to get forget the ending or get it muddled up. But a poem that struck me when I was a very young child and often comes back to me is William Blake’s lines: “To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour”. 

If you would like to appear in "Five minutes with...", do please get in touch! We alternate professional services and research/teaching staff profiles, and aim to feature colleagues from across a wide range of roles and grades within our institute. 

First published: 21 September 2020

<< January 2021