Spotlight on Alleviating Loneliness

It’s that time of year again to start thinking about Annual Meeting resolutions! 

Over 91,000 members selected their preferred resolution to move forward to the Annual Meeting, and two resolutions will be going forward to the Annual Meeting. 

They are:

Alleviating loneliness

This meeting calls on every WI and the NFWI to work alongside health and social care providers and their local community to raise awareness of the causes and impacts of loneliness, thus ensuring better identification of lonely people in order to be able to offer them the appropriate assistance and support.

Plastic Soup: Keep microplastic fibres out of our ocean  

Microplastic fibres are shed from synthetic clothing with every wash and are the main contributors to microplastic contamination of the oceans. The NFWI calls on Government and industry to research and develop innovative solutions to this problem in order to stop the accumulation of microplastic fibres in our oceans.

Now it’s up to you and your WI to take time over the next two months to consider how you would like your delegate to vote on each resolution. You can instruct her to vote ‘FOR’, ‘AGAINST’, or you can give her ‘DISCRETION’ to decide on the day of the Annual Meeting. 

You don’t need to vote for one over the other – you must consider each individually.

In this blogpost we shine a spotlight on loneliness, to help you find out more about the subject and consider how you wish your delegate to vote.

To help you decide, we have put together some resources in a variety of formats for you and your fellow members to learn about the topic, test your knowledge, and share your findings at your next meeting. 

To learn the basics about what loneliness is, who it impacts, and its personal, societal, and economic costs, consult our short briefing paper.

It’s a good idea to print copies of the briefing paper out and hand out at your next meeting if you’re going to be discussing resolutions.

Once you think you’ve learned about loneliness, take our short quiz to test your knowledge. 

If you think loneliness just impacts older people think again. Many different groups of people are vulnerable to feeling chronically lonely. Watch this short Channel 4 video about new mums grappling with loneliness: https://www.channel4.com/news/the-loneliness-of-becoming-a-new-mum 

If you would like to present this topic to your WI and you’re having trouble finding a speaker, why not do it yourself? You can use this presentation. 

We hope these resources help your WI arrive at a consensus about whether or not you would like to support this resolution. If you have any queries about this resolution, or the resolutions process in general, please contact the NFWI Public Affairs department at pa@nfwi.org.uk or 020 7371 9300 ext. 212.  

Next we will be focusing on Plastic Soup so watch this space for tomorrow’s blogpost.