Belinda Hirsh: inspired and inspiring

Just over a year ago, I recruited Ester as a volunteer for a charity I'm involved with www.focus-charity.co.uk. We needed an extra volunteer for a short residential project and we needed someone who would be able to cope with the challenging young people we worked with, so obviously I thought of Ester, and obviously she immediately agreed to come along. And obviously she was an instant success.

One night on the project, she and I went outside for a break after the participants had all gone to bed. We snuck out past the dorms and went to swing on some swings in the middle of a field. We stopped to watch a hedgehog walk past - she was chuffed cos she had never seen a real hedgehog before and I was chuffed because now she had.

I nattered to Ester about the work we were doing on the project with these troubled teenagers and about how well they were doing - one young adult with learning disabilities had just learned to tie her own shoelaces, one really shy teenage girl had suddenly come out of herself and was getting deliciously assertive and cheeky, and a teenage boy who was a notorious violent bully had taken one of the learning disabled teenagers under his wing and was helping him out and looking after him. Then Ester talked and it was no longer about what we were teaching them. She told me she was so happy she'd come on this project because she was learning so much from these young people. One particularly spaced out boy had decided to come away with us to try to make a clean break from all the drugs he was taking; he found it tough for the first few days but soon enough he felt so much more awake and alive and he was really proud of himself. Ester was totally inspired by this boy's strength and willpower; she told me she wanted never again to think of something as too difficult to achieve or as too much hardwork. She wanted to be able to challenge herself to change and to be strong enough to succeed.

Ester was like that. For her it wasn't about helping people who were less than her. For her each one of those people were special and talented and had something important to teach her. These kids that our government with their ASBOs had labelled as thugs and criminals, Ester saw as an inspiration and full of wisdom to impart to her if she just sat patiently and let them speak. Ester did that, she drew people out.

She did it with me too.

I remember one of the times I was at Angela & Ester's house for Friday night. I don't like Friday night dinners, they make me feel awkward and uncomfortable and inadequate as a Jew and ignorant and like an outsider. But I liked the house in Kilburn and I liked the company so I could generally be convinced to stay for the evening in spite of my discomfort. During and after dinner while everyone was talking I felt like a small child listening and trying to understand everything that was being discussed. Then Ester drew me out. I don't remember exactly how she did it, she asked me for a story or something or for an opinion, and at first I couldn't believe that people as knowledgable and educated as Angela and Ester hadn't already heard that story, or that they would like it, but Ester drew me out and soon I was talking and telling the story and I felt like an adult and an equal at the table instead of some dumb kid or the ignorant outsider. They hadn't heard my story before and I had contributed and played a part and I knew it was Ester who had done that, but she didn't even know because to her she was just trying to learn something from me - she didn't even realise how that special open attitude left me and everyone else she did that to feeling empowered.

She was inspired by everyone and thus she was an inspiration.