Social inclusion during social distancing
Community groups and activists around Eaglesham & Waterfoot, as well as Edzell & Brechin have found many creative ways to build local connections. From crafts to afternoons spent talking about sports memories, the activities people run have brought joy and social inclusion to the people who take part. Of course, now that it’s important to practice social distancing everyone needs to find new ways to connect in our communities.
How community activities are changing
What brings people together in your community? Maybe it’s usually football, knitting, learning about local history and heritage, or enjoying the outdoors. Maybe it’s getting together for a chat over cake and a cup of tea – community-building and food tend to go together very well.
How do we adapt these activities so they can be done remotely? Online quizzes, livestreamed dance classes, local newsletters, online or phone crafts groups and playing hangman in the window with neighbours are some ideas we’ve seen. More than ever, learning from people in other places is key for finding creative ways to build social inclusion while practicing social distancing.
Learning from the Community Connections project
The Community Connections project supports a wide range of groups to tackle challenges which come up in community organising. When you’re running a community group, there are often questions like
- ‘How can we engage a wider range of people?’
- ‘Where should we look for funding?’
- ‘What can we do to support our volunteers?’
Having to reinvent the wheel takes a lot of time. Instead, groups build on what’s been tried and tested by others locally and in other areas. Community Connections encourages community groups to share their knowledge about what works well where they are.
We are launching a survey to learn from what local groups and people around Eaglesham & Waterfoot as well as Edzell & Brechin have been doing. Hopefully hearing about the ways people in Eaglesham have been increasing connections in their community will be useful to people in North Angus – and the other way round too!
Survey about how your community stays connected
The survey will be used to create advice about what works in terms of keeping communities connected.
If you help with running (or if you take part in) community activities or groups in and around Brechin and Edzell or Eaglesham and Waterfoot, it would be brilliant if you could fill in our survey here.
Look out for updates over the next couple of months!
