MOSELEY COMES TOGETHER

Moseley Together is a network of local support organised by Moseley Community Development Trust (CDT), working with local Councillors Kerry Jenkins and Martin Straker Welds and volunteers from all over Moseley, to help people who are ill or self-isolating and unable to go out due

a small group and efficiently co-ordinated by Lorna Brewster of Moseley CDT. Initial details are obtained of the help required and then an area co-ordinator is asked to make contact with the person. The individual is then put in touch with a volunteer and there is a follow-up with both parties for any feedback or issues. The co-ordinators are all trusted local residents who have links into their neighbourhood. Many of the requests we have received are for collection of shopping and prescriptions, but some we have signposted for specialist and additional help including a number of referrals as 'extremely vulnerable'. Some people just need reassurance and a chat, and neighbours have gone above and beyond in checking on people they were worried about.

to COVID-19. The community spirit of Moseley went into overdrive to create, in less than a week, a website, logo and graphics, social media platforms and a network of volunteers and co-ordinators across the eight polling districts of Moseley ward. Leafleting networks were mobilised and posters put up. Guidelines were compiled, safeguards put in place and telephone crash courses administered in using Gmail and Google Drive. Moseley Together has a central helpline and email address monitored remotely by

Three weeks on and 336 people have signed up to volunteer and over 100 households have been helped, with about a third of those receiving regular ongoing support. A daily newsletter compiled by Fiona Adams and her Moseley Society team has kept us regularly updated in ways to deal with the lockdown: from businesses innovating and going online, to patterns for sewing masks. More recently the Moseley Together team became aware that some of our care homes desperately needed personal protective equipment (PPE) for their staff. An appeal resulted in donations of almost 7000 gloves, 120 face masks, 60 aprons and 10 bottles of sanitiser being delivered to six of the care homes with residents most at risk. Some talented sewers are now busy making colourful face masks for staff to wear over their PPE, and for younger residents in care homes to wear when they go out for walks or to shops. Donations of food and baby items have been delivered to Anawim, a charity that supports vulnerable women, and to The Active Wellbeing Society (TAWS) which has established Brum Together and is delivering food parcels to people throughout the city who cannot get out and would otherwise be without food. Residents’ WhatsApp groups have sprung up across Moseley and Balsall Heath, helping to build networks, put neighbours in touch with each other, to show solidarity and support for people who are ill, alone or anxious, and to send alerts when tinned tomatoes appear in M&S. We have plant pot, seed and book swaps, rainbows in windows and thank you notes on bins. If I had a drone I would fly it over the streets at 8pm every Thursday and record the clapping, pan banging, cheering and instrument-playing in tribute to our brave NHS staff and care workers. It would be a wonderful image of Moseley coming Together in difficult times. -Izzy Knowles www.moseleytogether.org.uk E Mail: info@moseleytogether.org.uk Call or text 07796 668257