Live Breaking News & Updates on Swindon Coronavirus Response
Stay updated with breaking news from Swindon coronavirus response. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
By Journal reporter : Gilly Jackson, Assistant Headteacher at Trafalgar School in Downton, receiving laptops from Wiltshire High Sheriff Ashley Truluck AN appeal in the Journal from a school for laptops to help pupils learn at home led to a delivery by Wiltshire’s High Sheriff. High Sheriff Ashley Truluck saw the article and contacted Wiltshire Digital Drive, a Community Interest Company formed last year to collect unwanted equipment and refurbish it before distributing it to families and groups in need. Mr Truluck is also chairman of trustees at Wiltshire Community Foundation, which had funded the group with a £5,000 grant from its Wiltshire and Swindon Coronavirus Response Fund. Wiltshire Digital Drive donated five laptops to Trafalgar School, which were delivered by Mr Truluck. ....
NEW volunteer listeners are being trained by the Samaritans as it contends with a more than 20 per cent rise in callers during the pandemic. Swindon and District Samaritans has been awarded £3,500 from Wiltshire Community Foundation’s Coronavirus Response and Recovery Fund to buy new headsets and carry out extra deep cleaning at its branch office in Swindon. The money was donated to the fund by the Oakfield development, a new neighbourhood of 239 sustainable homes in east Swindon. The headsets will allow new volunteers to be mentored remotely while they gain experience of taking calls. “The mentors listen into calls until the volunteers are ready to take their first step on their own,” said listening and publicity volunteer Maggie Gill. ....
A CORONAVIRUS fund grant is helping the Samaritans train new volunteer listeners as it contends with a more than 20 per cent rise in callers during the pandemic. Swindon and District Samaritans has been awarded £3,500 from Wiltshire Community Foundation’s Coronavirus Response and Recovery Fund to buy new headsets and carry out extra deep cleaning at its branch office in Swindon. The money was donated to the fund by the Oakfield development, a new neighbourhood of 239 sustainable homes in east Swindon. The community foundation’s fund has already raised £1.2 million and distributed more than £1 million through more than 200 grants to groups across the county. ....
Ipsum in Swindon provides low-cost one-to-one counselling as well as art, music and writing therapy groups. Its vital work in supporting others through the pandemic has been aided by a £36,000 grant from the Wiltshire Community Foundation’s Coronavirus Response and Recovery Fund Chief executive Julie Mattinson said the grant will help cover its running costs to allow it to stay open, increase its volunteer counsellors and expand its services online to cope with the extra calls for help. She said: “We are seeing a significant increase in frontline workers coming to us during the pandemic because they are struggling. They are under relentless strain at work as well as having to manage their home lives and they are just finding it hard to cope with everything.” ....
A GROUP that connects lonely and isolated elderly people through art has been awarded a coronavirus fund to help get its members online. Arts Together, which runs 30 sessions a year in Devizes, Marlborough, Pewsey, Trowbridge, Bradford on Avon and Melksham for more than 70 members, has been awarded £12,400 from Wiltshire Community Foundation’s Coronavirus Response and Recovery Fund. The fund has already raised more than £1.2 million and distributed more than £1 million through 220 grants to groups across the county. Arts Together will use the grant to buy laptops to loan to its members, most of whom are in their eighties and nineties. Many of them live alone. The planned rollout and associated one-to-one training has had to be suspended though, because of the latest lockdown. ....