Reducing social isolation during lockdown with Aviva
ELBA hosted an interesting forum on 19 May as part of the Isolation Reduction Project. The forum took place with charities supporting older people in east London and 8 representatives from Aviva Foundation, Aviva Fellowship, Aviva UK Corporate Responsibility and Aviva Investors.
Aviva were keen to facilitate dialogue to build their understanding of key issues and priorities for the older population to inform the development of their social purpose work. The four community partners from Age UK, St Luke’s Over 50’s Club, Hackney Caribbean Elderly Association and Zacchaeus shared examples of the impact of Covid-19 on older people and the organisation’s services and discussed longer term planning.
It is hoped that ELBA can support future forums and workshops with Aviva to continue these discussions. It was very clear that Covid-19 had increased social isolation and the digital divide in the older population – the challenge set was how to collaboratively address this.
Jeannet Lingan from the Aviva Foundation commented:
“This forum was important for us to connect with the experience of older people and will help us in our work to make a positive difference for our customers and communities. We are grateful to ELBA for facilitating this conversation.”
