Coronavirus: how to help

Doing something useful in the biggest crisis of our lifetime

Like the 700,000+ people who signed up to become NHS volunteers or the tens of thousands more who are volunteering for mutual aid groups, food banks and other frontline services, I desperately want to help.

I just don’t know how.

With no clinical skills to offer, my mind changes every day as to where I should be spending my time.

I’ve joined my mutual aid group in Tower Hamlets. It’s a borough that’s pretty low income with a sizeable Bengali population and massive health inequalities. I facepalmed when ten minutes of a zoom call of local organisers, all but one of whom were white, was devoted to sharing advice about someone’s sourdough starter. Then I castigated myself for being judgemental about the form in which people’s voluntary energy and goodwill shows up.

I felt conflicted when we clapped for carers alongside politicians that have given the NHS and social care so little of the respect and investment they deserve. I thought to myself: Maybe those folks would prefer immediate testing to PPE, comprehensive testing and better pay? But when the moment came, standing at my window next to my Doctor housemate, it felt like solidarity.

When out for exercise, I’ve scowled at people in groups, sunbathing or playing team sports — too cowardly to actually talk to them. Then I wondered whether by shaming and blaming my fellow citizens, I was inadvertently absolving government of its mishandling of the crisis.

My response, like so many others, feels messy, contradictory and wholly inadequate. But i’m going to keep trying.

Collective leadership in a crisis

As my colleague Kelly has written about, the Year Here network is responding to the emergency with an astounding patchwork of initiatives that makes me prouder than ever of this family:

• Our alumna Josephine Liang has set up Dare to Care Packages to send essentials to self-isolating people and NHS staff across London.
• 2020 Fellow Winnie Ogwang is working with Camden Council to help local mutual aid groups to understand safeguarding and health and safety.
• Our venture InCommon have launched Buddies, a new scheme to keep older people and their younger relatives connected through the crisis.
• Alumnus Josh Babarinde has set up a community call centre in his hometown of Eastbourne.
• A group of 2020 Fellows have been working with the Bromley By Bow Centre and Spare-Hand to connect volunteers up to vulnerable people.
• 2018/19 Fellow Kath Burnard has created a guide to keeping your shit together during Covid 19.
• Alumni Aoise Keogan Nooshabadi, Rachel Lewis and Jake Slater have created an open-source guide to surviving the crisis for social businesses.

By the time I finished listing these out, two more Year Here-led initiatives have pinged into my trainwreck of a WhatsApp.

Come work it out with us

This Thursday, we’re hosting an ambitious collaboration of Year Here Fellows, alumni, ventures, partners and friends this Thursday to scope our collective response. Where are the gaps? who needs help? what’s missing?

Help us answer these questions this Thursday at 5pm.

Just fill in the Typeform below and we’ll be in touch. Spaces are limited (by our Zoom pricing plan 😬).