Bromley Council has been instrumental in bringing together community organisations from across the Borough to look at how we can together tackle loneliness.
Well over one hundred delegates from organisations covering areas such as health, leisure and the voluntary sector attended a ‘Tackling Loneliness Together’ Summit at the Civic Centre on Friday 21 June during national loneliness awareness week. During the event, many pledged to step up action to combat this all-too-common occurrence in modern day life.
Bromley Council Leader, Cllr Colin Smith with Cllr Aisha Cuthbert at Bromley’s Loneliness Summit.
In his letter of invitation and opening remarks, Bromley Council Leader, Councillor Colin Smith told those assembled that loneliness can affect anyone at any stage of their life. He added: “I am absolutely determined that we should take loneliness more seriously as a society and together with partner organisations, try to ensure that no one feels alone or isolated from our community.”
Councillor Aisha Cuthbert, Executive Assistant to the Leader of the Council, who organised the Summit said: “I am delighted to have helped to kick start the debate about loneliness in our Borough. It’s strange how even in busy urban areas people are still lonely in this day and age and we know it affects not only older people, but care leavers and young mums too. We want to work with the community to make things better and we have got off to a fine start.”
Many organisations attending the Summit were already providing volunteers and events to ease the pressures for lonely people and felt that more publicity was needed about the issues and the solutions with more people coming forward to help. New ideas began to form from the meeting of minds on the day and there were pledges to step up activities from a number of organisations.