Category Archives: Health & Wellbeing

Poetry Corner take 2: ‘Imagine’ by Lemn Sissay

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Dear all

Caring Together is also proud to be supporting Refugee Week this week too. I was chatting to Karen this morning who let me know Refugee Week 2020 this year is inspired by the theme ‘Imagine’.

The week is about inviting you to do one or more of their eight Simple Acts that can all be done at home. It can be chatting together as Karen and I have done this morning, or read a book, watch some talks on YouTube. It is a collective movement to imagine a better world.

I found this small yet moving poem on the below website.

“The poet Lemn Sissay once described his wonderment at the thought that everything around us was imagined first. Everything physical – the camera he was looking at, the microphone he was talking into – started as an act of imagination. He wrote a poem”:

I will not limit myself
I will not be afraid
If it were not imagined
How else could it be made?

sourced: https://refugeeweek.org.uk/simple-acts/

final-refugee-week-leeds-1 – Copy

Thank you for sharing your inspiring thoughts and words of wisdom this morning Karen.

The Refugee Week Logo | Refugee Week

Poetry Corner: My Lockdown poem – written by Luke Hazelgrave

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We are proud to be supporting Learning Disability Week this week. It is a great way to raise awareness of learning disability across Leeds and the UK
Leeds Learning Disability Week logo - Connect in the North
Luke Hazelgrave who lives at Parkwood View in Specialised Supported Living Service has written a lockdown poem. Luke originally recorded himself reading the poem which he then shared to try and keep spirits up.
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I’ve written a poem about lockdown; a strange time for my generation.

It helps me express myself in this current situation.

I understand that lockdown is to keep me safe and sound,

But it makes me sad that I can’t have my family around.

The virus still scares me but I think I’ve been quite brave.

I like clapping for the NHS when having a shower, and having a good old wave.

I miss their smiling faces now that staff are wearing masks,

I’ve been kept busy by helping with household tasks.

I’m really missing sports but most of all rugby,

I’m really missing cuddles

Now that people can’t hug me.

I can’t wait to leave the house, further than the front door.

I can’t wait to go out to dance on the dance floor.

I really miss my family and I really miss my friends.

I can’t wait until this lockdown finally ends.

The lockdown is something I’ll remember forever.

We’ve all been so strong, let’s get through this together!

Luke Hazelgrave

Healthwatch Leeds Survey on Shielding

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Since the start of the pandemic, many people in Leeds have been advised to “shield” to keep themselves as safe as possible. Healthwatch Leeds would like people to let them know how this has been for them and what can be done to help them over the coming weeks.

Healthwatch would be grateful if people who have been shielding could complete their survey so they can feed back people’s experiences and help shape the city’s response to coronavirus in Leeds. You can find the survey here

If you’d like more information about shielding, please see the link at the end of the survey. If you know someone who is shielding and would like to take part in this but cannot complete it online, they are welcome to call the Healthwatch team on 0113 898 0035 to talk through the questions.

Your Healthwatch Leeds

‘Support Bubbles’ – Government Guidance from today

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New Government guidance means that from today (Saturday 13th June) people who live alone can form a “support bubble” with one other household. Those in the support bubble can spend time with each other inside the home and do not have to remain 2m apart.
Your support bubble should only be with one other household and you should not change who is in your bubble or have close contact with anyone else you do not live with.
If you or someone in your support bubble is showing coronavirus symptoms, everyone in your support bubble should stay home and self isolate.
https://www.gov.uk/…/meeting-people-from-outside-your-house…

The easing of restrictions includes healthy people aged 70 or over but the advice for those aged 70 and over continues to be that they should take particular care to minimise contact with others outside their household.

If you are classed as extremely vulnerable then the guidance for you has not changed and it is recommended that you continue to shield.
It is still against the law to have visits from or visit the home of anyone who is not part of your household or‘support bubble’.

You can still meet outdoors with up to 6 people providing you maintain social distancing rules and keep 2 metres apart.
https://www.gov.uk/…/meeting-people-from-outside-your-house…

The Government advice continues to be that the best way to keep yourself and others safe is to stay home as much as possible

Snapshot in Time: ‘Knitting things Together’ – Volunteers Week in Woodhouse, Little London and parts of City Centre

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Dear all,

This week was volunteers week. And at Caring Together we celebrate this event every year for volunteers and helpers. We recognise everyone’s offers of help and supportive gestures in whatever way it is given, this can even be from our regular dedicated volunteers, to ad hoc offers of help from members, and their family and friends and our supporters too. It all matters a great deal.

Over the last year your acts of kindness have benefited so many. From regular befriending visits, phone calls, letters to helping in groups, money box making and counting, sharing musical talents and written creativity, tending to the allotment, baking and making things, passing on and sharing skills together, tombollas, Unity day, Little London Community Day, helping at other events, day trips and outings, catering, fundraising, marketing, trustees, delivering our newsletters and so on. Phew!

And the lockdown did not squash your thoughtfulness, it just meant for some it shifted slightly for which we are truly grateful. To you and the countless others in the community who have, and continue to give so much, we say a huge thank you to you all.

On a final note we did have something special planned this year with it being our ’25th Year’ yet this will have to wait. We can still celebrate together the amazing support of all our Caring Together’s volunteers and helpers, past and present. And everyone else in the community doing their bit.

Members and volunteers from the Univeristy of Leeds enjoying a sing a long last year before the lockdown

Homemade Marmalade sitting alongside our second batch of homemade Jam

Volunteers at Unity Day last year – huge team effort


Our newsletter ready for our team of volunteers


Pat and Joyce helping in the office prior to the lockdown. And one of our volunteers bringing the newsletter together just recently in the sun. Myrna is also making use of some of the home made jam and marmalade. She is baking buns and cakes which she will be distributing to her neighbours. Some of whom work in the NHS and some are shielding.

 


This is our 2nd homemade fruit cake


Helping to do a bit of shopping


Music Creations and Singing together with student volunteers just before the lockdown


Crochet and Sewing Skills Share – this was a team effort, just before the lockdown, led by Felina, Viv and Sylvia who kindly helped a group of us rekindle chrochet skills and for some learn how to crochet. I recently picked up one of the blankets from Felina who lovingly finished it off. We made two blankets. The one Felina is holding was for one of our members in the next picture.

.Happy 90th Birthday Clarita for this weekend. She was thrilled with her gift, yet not so much with my singing and birthday jig….

Thank you to you all for ‘Caring Together’

Bringing a little of the great outdoors into your home

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BBC Countryfile  are offering virtual escapes to the magical landscapes and extraordinary wildlife of Britain’s 15 national parks, from the mountains of Snowdonia and the coastline of Pembrokeshire to the lakes of Loch Lomond and the hills of the Yorkshire Dales
So sit back and relax from the comfort of your home and get your fix of the great outdoors even if you can’t physically be
there with a virtual tour:
https://www.countryfile.com/…/virtual-escapes-britains-inc…/

Discover the magical landscapes and extraordinary wildlife of Britain’s 15 national parks, from the mountains of Snowdonia and the coastline of Pembrokeshire to the lakes of Loch Lomond and the hills of the Yorkshire Dales

Lockdown Leeds

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A few pictures from my solitary early morning walks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think the bird at Leeds Dock might be a heron? But ornithology is not my strong point so I’d welcome correction.

Slightly worried about the swan as it’s mate was nowhere to be seen and it seemed to be calling.

It’s very peaceful walking in Leeds at the moment – hardly a soul to be seen in the early morning and nature is abundant with less people and traffic around.  I do hope we are out of lockdown soon but a part of me will miss the solitude.

Valerie – Caring Together

Local History

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We had our penultimate research session in Leeds Central Library for the ‘Women Reflecting on Women’ project last week. There were still lots to discuss. For one of our members the subject of the workhouse in Holbeck came up. This resulted in maps being brought out of the area, past and present. She recollected her mum saying hello, and chatting to those in the workhouse as she and her mum passed by.
The picture below is from the Leodis Leeds website along with a note about the remains of the site:
‘View of the remains of the Holbeck Union Workhouse on Beeston Road/Lane End, showing the rear entrance seen from the bowling green opposite on Moorville Grove. Following the closure of the workhouse the building became Leeds Corporation’s South Lodge public assistance institution. The site is now partly covered by Beeston Hill St Luke’s C of E Primary School’  http://www.leodis.net/ 25.11.19

Lighting the way!

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As part of the ‘Nature Revealed: Making the Invisible Visible’ project, Caring Together will be working alongside the University of Leeds, Schools, other organisations and various artists which involves coming together at intervals in the year using creative techniques to explore the natural world of migrational and nocturnal birds, hedgehogs and bats etc.

For the past few weeks, at Little London Community Centre, this has involved making lanterns which will culminate in them being used  as part of Light Night in October 2020.

I for one cannot wait to see them finished. Watch this space.