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North London Cares
London is an amazing city, full of opportunity and change, but for some of our older neighbours - particularly those who have lived in London their entire lives and seen it change beyond recognition - those changes can be isolating, and deepen feelings of anonymity and loneliness that are already synonymous with old age. Similarly young Londoners can experience feelings of isolation and…
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Love Your Neighbour is North London Cares' friendship matching scheme, which brings volunteers together with their older neighbours aged 65 and over. This 1-2-1 Friendship Programme will connect you with an older neighbour in North London for regular visits or phone calls. You'll build a mutually beneficial friendship with an older neighbour in your local community, learn from and about each other's life experiences, and hopefully become good friends along the way. This means that our older pals who are less able to go out and about, or who have lost some social connections over the years, can feel re-connected to their local community through friendship, chatter, and laughter.  

This programme is a unique opportunity to connect with someone of a different generation outside of your usual social bubble and a wonderful opportunity to share skills and interests but also acquire new ones too.

Love Your Neighbour runs across the boroughs of Camden and Islington. You can still apply if you live outside these boroughs. To find out more you can read our Love Your Neighbour Guide but if you want to know what it's all about we think Dexter and Michael's friendship says it all!

 

 

Time commitment

This programme requires more commitment from volunteers, it’s not a one-off in the same way as a Social Club, you will be required to visit or speak to an older neighbour regularly each week. You can decide how this looks, whether it’s 3-4 20 minute phone calls each week, or a one hour visit to sit at home with them, whatever works for you and we’ll match you with someone looking for a similar thing. Building friendship can take time, which is why we ask volunteers on Love Your Neighbour to commit to at least six months of calls or visits once we’ve introduced them to an older neighbour.
What measures have you put in place to ensure volunteers’ safety during COVID-19?
At North London Cares we are continuing to encourage Covid-19 safety measures for matches on our LYN programme, but we will work with each match to support them to find what feels best for them. We advise all neighbours to do what they are comfortable with and we ask everyone to respect this.

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See what other students say about this project

"It was a great way for me to build a deeper connection with the city and this was important for me as an international student."
Tiantian Yu is a Postgraduate student studying Economics and Policy of Energy and the Environment
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This organisation is one of our community partner organisations.

Like all volunteer recruiters we work with, they have signed up to our service standards, agreeing to abide by our policy on partnership working.

In addition, the team here at Students’ Union UCL Volunteering Service is here to support you throughout your volunteering journey – you can get in touch at any time with any questions, queries or problems you encounter.