Life during lockdown

Good morning, I signed up as volunteer at St John Ambulance. Completed my First Aider Training and COVID19 Care Module and will start helping NHS staff shortly in nearby hospital. 
St John Ambulance is amazing organization with Class A health care training programs and wonderful professionals. However, organization has been affected badly by lockdown and needs additional funding. Any help from Mayor Of London office would be very welcomed. 

hi

i am not a category at risk but still I have some medical conditions that make me more vulnerable. It has been impossible to get any food from supermarkets during lockdown as I am not vulnerable and I don’t like saying I am cause I know there are people who are more vulnerable than me.. 

it would have been nice to get some help from supermarket or other entities. I needed to self talk to myself to face my fears and in the end I went out otherwise ... how do you eat? Thanks 

Following on from earlier message in this discussion, I would make two suggestions:

(1) The mayor should support each London Borough in setting up a "Volunteer Reserve", a group of people committed to helping as volunteers whenever an emergency arises, whether it is national/international (e.g. Covid-19) or local (e.g. the Grenfell Tower fire). Having a local structure of co-ordination and conmmunication in place before disaster strikes would avoid the sort of delays we have seen in the last few weeks in getting help up and running. And the reason I suggest doing this at Borough level is that something we have learned from the present situation as well as the Grenfell tragedy is that small-scale bottom-up initiatives are far more effective and efficient than top-down government-led bureaucracy-heavy approaches.

(2) The mayor should put pressure on national government to introduce universal basic income(UBI) - and on a permanent basis. The present situation with a variety of different arrangements (e.g. furloughing) depending on the employment status of individuals is a complicated mess, and so complicated that it leaves some with no cash at all, at least in the short-term. With a UBI system in place it would be an easy matter to increase the weekly amount in a time of emergency. Some people ask "how could UBI be afforded", but actually it could cost nothing to implement as an increase in income tax for anyone with an income above the median could pay for it. Indeed a UBI would save money as it would be so easy to administrate compared with the present punitive and complicated system of universal credit etc. and it would require virtually no policing. I think one good thing that might come out of the present crisis is that we might see broad public support for UBI - an idea whose time has definitely arrived.

Dear CMLF

I am a member of Nextdoor. In fact I am the leader of a Coronavirus group on Nextdoor and I have volunteered my services on Nextdoor but still no-one needs me. It is really frustrating. All of my other voluntary work has dried up as well. I feel as though I am useless. 

Thinking of how the volunteers that have risen at this time should be truly rewarded. 

I want society to recognise community and giving more than money and celebrity status or unscrupulous businesses...maybe this is a good opportunity to push for that...and our nation is doing so for the NHS and key workers.

We need a global kindness pandemic, and besides autocratic leaders in this world, there are many that already have this! 

I want the shift to what we truly value to come about! Kindness, community, support, humanity, sharing, inclusivity and cooperation. It's what, I believe, gives long life, quality of life, fulfillment each day and health in all aspects. 

Just wanted to share that volunteers  (our community version of the NHS) are the ones to be rewarded and if I could change this world to make everyone see that and act on it, I would. Their selfless giving is the biggest movement of our day. 

I think it needs to stay around indefinatly...and be added to in global numbers and resources from here on. 

♥️♥️♥️

Why not employ some of London's black cab drivers to safely transport volunteers/staff around London?  They have the glass screen to separate themselves from their passengers and could be employed on rota bases (say 2 - 3 hours per day).

The problem with calls for volunteers are that there are always more volunteers than initial requirements. The same thing happened in the olympics and many of us ended up doing very little for a number of weeks. The logistics of identifying who needs assistance, exactly what they need and where and when they need it and then matching them with helpers in the immediate area (who have been security checked) must be a nightmare and will take some time to get up and running. I think it's important that volunteers understand this and that they may not be called on for some time, but that they will be needed as this isn't going to go away soon.

This work is most appropriately done at a local level. Maybe we could eventually have a network of helpers (not carers) who do little jobs like prescription collections, small shops etc. Maybe we could ensure that every vulnerable or elderly person has an individual helper allocated to them (with another back up helper in case the first one falls ill  etc). We could call the scheme "One for all" so that everyone has someone.

As a "Clinically EXTREMELY Vulnerable" person, who is Protective Shielding (with others in Vulnerable group also permanently at home due to my status) I find it humiliating to have to KEEP confirming our need for food parcel EVERY single week. We have received rotten, old and smashed open food like second class Citizens. We've received Gluten-containing items when we have a COELIAC at home, so very little food for her!!

Why doesn't the Local council (or central Govt) finallly make the food help for the highest "EXTREMELY" vulnerable group an OPT-OUT scheme? All others including Vulnerable people can still OPT-IN as usual. This would be easier to handle for volunteers and less humiliating for us EXTREMELY vulnerable to COVID-19.

I think going forward support will be needed for some time to come with the predicted unemployment. Not just food but particularly for babies and children who seem to grow at a surprising rate! I am willing to knit and saw for babies and children and donate the items. It would be good if others would do the same or even buy from charity shops to donate to those in need.

You could have a agency that has people who are willing to volunteer in a emergency. For example I applied to be a volunteer for the NHS about 6 weeks ago and I am still waiting to hear if I have been successful. I have tried to contact them but they were so inundated with people who were wanting to volunteer via the GoodSam app that I kept on getting error messages. So obviously I was not needed. 

I work for a volunteering charity who has volunteers across homeless projects, food-banks, food distribution, reducing isolation and other projects not directly related the the Covid-19 crisis, but have been impacted by it. We normally work alongside about 140 VCS groups in a year and engage 5,500 volunteers in 170+ projects. There are a lot of issues, but two inter-related challenges seem the most urgent at this time.  

Firstly, volunteer numbers are beginning to 'tail-off' at the front line, some are becoming emotionally and physically tired, having to self-isolate or just a host of other reasons. There are still a lot of willing volunteers available, but the infrastructure to get them deployed quickly has reached capacity - the delay this is causing, is leading potential volunteers to feel that they are not needed, which leads to the second, related issue:

As we enter an 'interim normal', these volunteers are going to be needed more than ever, and the multitude of particularly small community groups will need to be healthy enough (financially and physically) to deploy them. I doubt wether many of them will survive the financial 'hit' of the crisis, which will put an immense strain on public services who will find themselves needing to fill the gap. I hate to imagine what would happen if a large section of the voluntary sector was to 'disappear'.

In the first instance, City Hall, Londoners and indeed government can feel proud of these volunteers and recognise their contribution, especially around continuing to support their existing client groups despite the crisis. Secondly, to explore how these 'Small, but Vital' groups are supported to continue their work into the future.

Thank You for all that you are doing at the moment

I think money should be given directly to foodbanks and community projects working directly with the public to pay for coordinators, to cover the costs of energy and warehousing and for food supplies which are running low. I think there should be a grant fund to update and modernise faith and community premises running food projects to make the venues easier and more optimistic hosting/working spaces, and the purchase of catering equipment and updated kitchens.

Universal Credit needs to be increased.

Basic living costs need to be capped and emergency or basic living support needs to increase to allow for being able to afford food. 

No reason to have this situation when so much wealth exists in our world and no one should have to access food banks especially in the UK...unless things are run so badly...and they are and have been for more than too long so let's get it changed for the better now. 

Universal credit needs to be lifted in line with living costs to at least £120pw. 

Rents, bank charges, vets, phone, internet, dentists, food, prescription charges all need capping and reducing profits. 

Let's take this opportunity to reduce the obscenely wealthy and give people enough to eat. Human rights. Humanity. Equality. Better futures. 

This inequality in our country and the world deeply saddens me. Change must happen. No one should be lining the pockets of bankers anymore. We must move on from this greed and elitism.