Connecting our communities

By Sue Mosley, Deputy CEO and Director of Income Generation, Marketing and Engagement at Age UK WMHL

With loneliness and isolation very much on the agenda for local government and a raft of reports and surveys to back up the need for more to be done to address the growing number of people struggling to find meaningful connections, how can we as individuals contribute to creating a more connected community?

In the aftermath of Covid and now the cost-of-living crisis we have seen a significant rise in clients presenting with feelings of loneliness and anxiety.

These are arising from significant life events such as bereavement, diagnosis of a serious illness, relationship breakdown or from a deterioration in circumstances such as a decrease in income, housing issues, rural isolation, decrease in mobility, health and weight issues.

Our information and advice teams are witnessing increasing complexity of cases and our befriending service has seen a significant increase in referrals as older people express the need for reconnecting with others.

On a recent long drive I listened to a podcast about the power of connecting with others, whether that be a brief smile and exchange of words as you pass someone in the street to reconnecting with someone you haven’t seen in a while.

And I was reminded of the power of reconnections and how it helped me.

When I returned to my home county of Herefordshire after 34 years away and amidst a traumatic relationship breakdown, an old school friend reached out to me as she knew that I was struggling. Since then we have walked together every week, gathering up a small group of fellow walkers, many who have struggled with life-changing events, and value the opportunity (as I still do) to talk, laugh and sometimes cry but always feel better after being together.

At the charity we are refocusing our work on the importance of feeling connected, building on our strong ethos of place-based, community focused delivery to provide a range of opportunities for over 50s to meet, socialise and build meaningful connections through a range of activities.

We will continue to build our already-successful befriending offer to support those who may not be able to leave their homes or struggle to access services due to other challenges.

This month we will be launching our Walking Back to Happiness event with the aim of raising funds to develop and deliver our Connected Communities project.

A great opportunity to walk with old friends and new, making those connections and feeling great as a result!