- Loneliness affects 1 in 6 people across the world.
- Befriending brings people together for planned social activities, building meaningful connections and reducing loneliness.
- Befriending Week takes place from 1 to 7 November every year.
Voluntary Action Coventry can help you connect with new interests in Coventry.
Here at Voluntary Action Coventry we help people make social connections through volunteering and community engagement. We help people to get involved in the community around them, to make a contribution and through this to feel better about themselves. We do this via our projects Chat Central and Improving Lives and we also run a drop-in service to support people in making wider links – if this sounds like something that you would benefit from, then read more below.
Befriending roles – could you volunteer as a befriender?
We have hundreds of live volunteering roles on our community engagement platform, Get Involved Coventry, where lots of community organisations advertise how they need help. In Befriending Week, we’re having a special focus on organisations who provide befriending support. .
Volunteer with Hope Coventry:
Hope Coventry befriend and support older people through their Good Neighbours Coventry project. Befriending an older person in your local area takes just 30-60 minutes, fortnightly or weekly. It fits into your life, and you gain a new friend. You can learn more about Coventry life and history, and feel great that you’ve made a housebound older person feel less lonely.
Become a telephone befriender with Deafblind UK
Deafblind UK is the UK’s only charity specialising in
supporting people with any level of deafblindness. They offer a free telephone befriending service where they match volunteers with one of the members to have a weekly 30 minute chat together. Whatever the conversation you’ll be having a positive impact.
And there are more befriending role volunteer vacancies listed on Get Involved Coventry – if you think you could lend a hand, then why not take a look at current befriending roles here:
Voluntary Action Coventry can help YOU connect with new interests in Coventry
You can also enrol for our next supported volunteering course, Improving Lives – starts Tues 18 November – this 4 week course is free to join. Improving Lives is for anyone aged 18 years and over who is unemployed (or NEET) who wants to know more about volunteering opportunities in Coventry, and have a go at some volunteering activities to increase their confidence and well-being.to find out more and to enrol, visit the webpage here.
Every Monday/Tuesday ‘Pop-in to Drop In’, VAC, Harp Place 10am-2pm
For more information about Befriending Week and the campaign, visit the national website here.