Stepping away from COVID-19

August 14, 2020

Stepping away from COVID-19...

Earlier this week, we wrote to our network of 1,000+ community volunteers and beneficiaries to advise them of some recent changes…

Hi everyone,

I hope you’re keeping well. I wanted to let you know about some recent changes… We’re stepping away from COVID19community.org and bringing everything we do to CommunityCalling.ltd

We’re still here to provide support to individuals and organisations as we have been doing, we’ll just be accepting the requests here instead.

We’ve been up and running for close to 5 months now and as you probably know, we formed Community Calling back in March in response to the pandemic. Requests gradually died down after the initial spike but we have stuck around to figure out a way to address the new needs appearing as a result of the coronavirus and to find new ways to meet existing needs that have been affected by the restrictions.

This week we are launching our new website, CommunityCalling.ltd AND Community Network NI – a new web and mobile app which has been designed to connect and empower local organisations and volunteers.

What members can expect from Community Network NI:

Connect with like-minded members who are based near you and who are facing similar challenges. Explore opportunities for collaboration.
Make better-informed decisions about the work you do and the things that are most important to you so that valuable resources are not duplicated.
Swap stories, experiences, and ideas (not necessarily advice) around our shared mission of supporting local communities in Northern Ireland.
Find inspiration and perspective through an active network that embraces the opportunity to learn and adapt to the challenges we face.
Respond better to the community by addressing new needs appearing as a result of the coronavirus and where restrictions mean finding new ways of meeting existing needs.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be taking to social media and the Community Network NI to reflect on some of the heartwarming feedback from the last 4-5 months, to let everyone know we are still around to provide support if they need it, and, last but not least, we will be calling for people to get involved!

We are looking at new ways to support people who are currently struggling and those who are at increased risk of poor mental health and wellbeing if they happen to find themselves in isolation during the winter months ahead.

Once again, that means volunteering time to support our local communities but also volunteering skills such as training, treatments and performances and donating items for raffles, food parcels and care packs.

We plan to continue coordinating community support across Northern Ireland by matching support requests to local volunteers / community groups; AND, by matching volunteers / donations with other community organisations in order to increase capacity on existing community support.

2020 has been full of challenges and opportunities – we’ve decided to focus on the opportunity of using technology to respond more effectively to the needs of our communities during times when close contact and traditional support isn’t always an option.

I’d like to take this opportunity to say A MASSIVE THANK YOU to all the volunteers and donors for your kindness and willingness to help the community over the last 4-5 months, and to all the beneficiaries for trusting us to provide support.

Let’s stay connected: JOIN US over at the Community Network NI if you’re interested in getting involved as we build our very own community-led, virtual network from scratch.

Please note: Our Slack will remain in use until such times as we can move all incoming support requests over to private channels on the Community Network NI.

If you would like to get in touch for anything at all (questions, concerns, support) – drop me a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

If your circumstances have changed and you no longer wish to be part of our support network, please don’t hesitate to unsubscribe – we’ll totally understand.

Thanks so much,

Sarah

Sarah Scullion

Community Support Coordinator

Community Calling Ltd

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