National Lottery Funding – Isolation Reduction Project
ELBA has recently been awarded funding from the National Lottery Community Fund. This funding will help us expand the reach and capacity we have to reduce isolation amongst older residents in east London.
We know the incidence of isolation, poor mental wellbeing and poverty among the elderly in east London is growing, and we need to do more to help combat the trend. East London boroughs continue to measure highly on the UK Indices of Multiple Deprivation with high levels of household poverty. Older people and children remain the most vulnerable. For example, Tower Hamlets has the highest level of elderly living in poverty in the UK.
We hope to engage more community partners, open and encourage dialogue about the hopes and aspirations they have for their users as well as learning about the challenges they face so that we can work together with volunteers to overcome them.
We want to:
• Significantly increase the number of activities we are able to support
• Widen the type of activities, for example bringing some element of movement and physical activities
• Widen the geographical reach of the areas we are able to support.
• Strengthen the network of organisations working together on this issue, and help build the capacity of individual organisations
We will be working with community organisations, understanding their needs to ensure volunteers from our corporate partners are able to help effectively, whilst also expanding the scope of activities currently being done with older people in east London.
To recommend community organisations within east London who could benefit from extra support or for more information please contact: Smera Nadeem – smera.nadeem@elba-1.org.uk.
