My five wishes - North London Cares

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We recently welcomed our new Programme Coordinator, Helena, to the North London Cares team to run our Love Your Neighbour programme. In her first blog for the charity, she tells us why she was inspired to join our team and combat social and generational divides.

To explain why I was so keen to join North London Cares, I should take you back a bit. A month ago I was conducting a much-needed clear up of my childhood bedroom when I discovered a piece of paper entitled ‘My Five Wishes’.

This was a project we were set in Year Five at school. MY wishes were perhaps a bit precocious for a ten-year-old, featuring ‘End world hunger’, ‘Stop all war’ and ‘Help people like my grandma, who have MS.’

My grandma lived on her own, and was only able to move her neck and her right elbow. She relied heavily on carers, and was only able to go out and about with the help of her lovely friends and neighbours.

Because she lived in Hull, and we lived in Dorset, we didn’t get to see her that often. Since moving to London and working in the local community in my previous job, I have realised just how lucky she was to be surrounded by such a tight-knit network of neighbours.

London has changed so rapidly, and has become so vast that it is harder than ever for people to get to know their neighbours and feel part of a community.

As a young professional in London it is easy to feel detached from your local community, which is why I valued my previous job at Central Street Cookery School (a part of St Luke’s Community Centre) so highly; it gave me the opportunity to meet people of all ages and backgrounds and teach them to cook.

Food and community were also a main theme of my undergraduate dissertation, in which I looked at Italian food in post-war London. It was fantastic being able to meet some ladies from Clerkenwell's Italian community through my work at St Luke’s and to chat to them about their memories.

I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting more north London neighbours in my first week, and can’t wait to get to know lots more brilliant, interesting neighbours over the next few months.

The main part of my role as Love Your Neighbour Programme Coordinator is matching up young and older neighbours for company, companionship and conversation one-on-one.

This allows people to have a cup of tea, a chat and offers both younger and older neighbours pause, reflection and shared storytelling. I feel passionately that this is of utmost importance in the whirlwind world that is London today. I’m really looking forward to pairing up some lovely people across generations for long-lasting friendships.

The past week has been busy but great- I’ve loved getting out and about to a couple of social clubs, learning the ropes here in the office and getting to know the lovely North London Cares team.

One of the first tasks I'm getting stuck into is spreading the word about the Aviva Community Fund. We're hoping to win £10,000 to put on special dinners for our Love Your Neighbour network throughout 2017. If you have a couple of spare minutes and want to give me a welcome present, please vote here!

I’m still working on the fourth of my five wishes, which was to be on Strictly Come Dancing. Meanwhile I couldn’t be happier to have found a job with a charity as fantastic as North London Cares, which I feel satisfies the crux of those other three wishes, namely making a positive difference to the world. It is a privilege to play a part in helping to create local communities and tackling social isolation, and in the process I will hopefully be making my grandma proud.