Challenge
Volunteering as a tool to combat loneliness
Pre Covid, we met many people who came to us wanting to volunteer. However, it was apparent that they also wanted to connect with their communities, meet people, improve their language skills perhaps. Volunteering is inevitably a tool for achieving these things.
The landscape has changed now and people are lonelier and more isolated than ever. How can communities respond to this? What opportunities are there in communities for people to get involved and achieve these aims.
Health And Wellbeing
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Ronan Gilroy
I'll volunteer!
Happy to listen to the older generation, Sligo region, their stories, their wishes, their ideas for a better society if they want!
Sinead Keenan
We run a befriending project where volunteers visit or phone older people who are lonely or issolated. But we regularly come across younger people who are just as lonely, for various reasons. This seems worse at the moment with chances to volunteer, meet and socialise limited. Online doesn't work for everyone. Volunteer Centres can act as a referral point to other services. We meet some people who aren't ready for volunteering but can direct them to other groups like men's sheds, women's groups, mental health support groups. So many of these are closed at present and people are really missing them.
Grainne Berrill
Connected communities are an important element of general community resilience and has economic as well as social benefits. Bringing disparate individuals together as volunteers to serve a community goal, address a challenge or simply just to give their time to their community and connect with others strengthens the social fabric of that community. Community resilience was proven to be crucial to the COVID19 response - how do we harness this, and support communities at all levels to recognise the value of volunteer engagement as a tool to address/reduce loneliness?