Rotary Club of Guernsey and World BEYOND War Course
Fighting Loneliness in our Community
The Rotary Club of Guernsey has sponsored the 5 participants on the Guernsey Team undertaking the world class “Peace Education and Action for Impact” programme which has social change action at its core. It is a global programme offered locally in 2023 and was open to anyone aged 18-35 who wants to make a difference in themselves and others.
The Guernsey team members have conceived, shaped, and will deliver and evaluate their own social action project. They have decided that loneliness is relevant to them from their prior knowledge and understanding, their own interests and their new learning from the course, each other and the participants from other parts of the world. A short survey has been launched today on connection and belonging in Guernsey. It wants your views on loneliness and suggestions on how to tackle it and we are asking the whole community to help us by taking the survey. This coincides with Mental Health Awareness Week which runs from 15th to Sunday 21st May.One of the participants, Jacques Le Page explained “We are conducting a survey on loneliness and how people might feel more connected. We have a free raffle with 3 great prizes to thank those that take part. You can fill out the survey online at https://forms.gle/KcmrGpJ8JnTBCiuUA or join us at Seafront Sunday on 21st May 2023. Paper copies will also be available at Seafront Sunday or we can provide a device for you to complete the survey when you visit our stand. If you want to be entered into the raffle we will need your email address or contact number but otherwise the survey responses are completely anonymous.”
“We are a small group of 5 participants between 18 and 35 years old working on this project with 2 mentors and 2 co-ordinators locally. The Group believes that loneliness is a key issue locally it wanted to help address. We believe the results will be useful to Health Connections, who we have been liaising with, as well as other local charities and organisations. The aim of the project is to make suggestions for enabling a greater feeling of belonging and connectiveness and reducing isolation and loneliness. An anonymised summary report will be available publicly once we have analysed the results.”
The Guernsey and Alderney Wellbeing Survey 2018 showed that 18% of the 2,656 respondents often or always felt lonely, isolated or lacked companionship. There was also evidence that those between 16 and 24 years old were more likely to experience higher levels of loneliness than the general population.
Complete the survey at https://forms.gle/KcmrGpJ8JnTBCiuUA or visit our stand at the GSPCA Seafront Sunday event on 21st May or email gsypeaceproject23@gmail.com with any other questions on how to take part.
Jannine Birtwistle
19 May 2023
