LOCKDOWN has been a testing time for many of us but more so for the older members of our community and especially those living alone.  Good Morning West Belfast, which forms part of the Ardmonagh Family and Community Group, have been a lifeline for those elderly members of our community who have been feeling isolated during the pandemic. 

Team leader Mary Ellen Campbell described how demand for their services increased during the first lockdown.  “During the first lockdown we noticed that within the first six weeks we had increased our call line by 20 per cent with our service users,” she said. “Some of our service users were getting three calls every day of the week and we have increased our calls from five days to seven days a week during the first lockdown. In addition to this we have also introduced evening calls to negate the anxiety of having to stay at home.

“We see our service as a lot more than a phone call. We see it as linking these people in with the community and sharing information with them. For instance, if we hear of scams going around or issues of community safety then we will feed that information to them. “Part of our role is to try and make our service users feel that little bit safer in their homes so that they can stay within their own home for longer. These are the people who built our communities and they should feel safer and be a part of the community that they built.”

However, Good Morning West Belfast is about more than a friendly voice at the end of the phone. Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak Mary Ellen and the team had been researching the benefits of virtual befriending. They looked at research from the University of York which focused on the benefits of social media in terms of combating social isolation. Following this they looked at a scheme which had been implanted in Barcelona and a similar scheme in the Republic of Ireland called the Alone Project. 

While the scheme had been in development prior to the pandemic, Mary Ellen talked of how the Coronavirus outbreak brought that forward. 

“We were lucky enough to get some funding last year so we were able to buy 25 tablets for our users. “ Some of them had their own tablets and this has allowed us to begin rolling our virtual befriending whereby we can talk to them face to face online rather than visiting their homes. We also do virtual coffee hours twice a week and a movie afternoon.”

In addition to this, during the first lockdown the Good Morning West Belfast team linked up with other groups in the area to deliver food parcels to their service users alongside distributing 60 home safety packs in conjunction with the Falls Community Council.  Back in 2019 Good Morning West Belfast held a tea dance for their service users in Belfast City Hall. Speaking of this Mary Ellen said: “We brought some of our service users to City Hall and that came from us talking to them and they had said that the only time they were in City Hall was when they were paying their gas bill and they had to go to a side window. We orga

nised a tea dance with music in the Rotunda and a sparkling wine reception.

“In normal times we would organise four tea dances a year for our users and for some of them they relied on us to get them out of the house and socialising but unfortunately that has had to stop due to Covid. “We are all looking forward to when we can get back to some sort of normality so that we can organise these sorts of events again and continue to combat the social isolation being felt by some of these people.” If you are over the age of 60 and would like to avail of the services offered by Good Morning West Belfast then contact Mary Ellen on 02890245943 Ext 7.