REWIND THE CLOCK

The last two years have a lot of things, for all of us. But we have few things in common, it’s loss. We all lost something in past two years. We lost money. We lost time. And a lot of us lost people, too. We lost three of our participants. It was a great loss.

Connect.

The news from Public Health shows that the pandemic might continue, and as a result more people of all ages will experience loneliness and social isolation. Reduction in face-to-face opportunities to socialise, connect with family, neighbours, and friends and to take part in physical activity and everyday cultural and faith experiences. We are already running regular Zoom sessions to raise awareness of Covid19 and Health. This project will use 5 Ways of Wellbeing tool particularly ‘CONNECT’, to reduce loneliness with BAME Communities by using digital and innovative ways to provide swift, responsive, reassuring help. It will prioritise vulnerable people with long term conditions to access other services. Zoom Session Worker and volunteers will make every week regular wellbeing calls, run online groups and sessions, and provide expert advice through Whatsapp/Facebook page and signposting. Group activities via Zoom will help to improve social connections. Using interactive sessions of social activity will focused on health and wellbeing will help to tackle loneliness. One-to-one telephone call approach by trained volunteers befriending part of project will also help to reduce loneliness. Estimated number of people will benefit via Zoom 100 and via social media 1000.

Mental Health Sustainability Fund

Training for volunteers Zoom and Team meeting, Video editing, poster making for social media.

Poetry Behind the Mask

Project is to work with our existing members and other South Asian communities in Greater Manchester through social media, Whatsapp and Facebook. We developed a WhatsApp group of people to participate in this project. We also created online poetry event and used Youtube channel to promote. We were also given an opportunity to get BBC News coverage as well. The project has also produced 11 videos by writers to encourage everyone to get vaccinated. All videos are on our partner organisation Carvan-E-Adab YouTube channel. The project will end in 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsz-46Y5Feo

Rewind The Clock

The project is to focus on 7 different childhood games of 1950s such as Marbles, Caromboard, Ludo in Indian sub-continent. Working with South Asian Communities in Rochdale, Oldham and Ashton and record memories of older people.

New Horizons

The project is to work with South Asian communities’ older members to enable to benefit from the technology [smart phone]. Last month we did the mini consultations with 35 members of older people’s groups and found that majority is having smart phone but don’t have experience of using it. Some said they don’t know some said they feel shy and some said need support.

Community Health Information Shop

The approach is designed to move away from health as disease prevention or cure, to a perception of health as a choice that is available to and accessible by all. Last year we did the pilot project for one month with some health literature and books. We asked the feedback from people who came to our project. The result showed clients visiting Health Information Shop improved their physical health, increased their income, and reduced their social isolation, stress, and anxiety levels. We helped clients manage their long-term conditions more effectively, we also involved family members in health-related sessions and encouraging clients to be more physically active. The family members of clients were also found to have been positively impacted upon by accessing information in their languages. Support at the Health Information Shop, We also had a Focus group last month and participants indicated that this project could help and improve their confidence, understanding of health.

SAHARA

This is the initiave in partnership with key people in Karachi, Pakistan to work to empower children through education. We also work with people who wants to support needy people in Pakistan by donation. The Co-ordinator for Pakistan is MR Hilal Khan Tel: 03102238439