Priti meets the Eastlight community entrepreneurs tackling social isolation

Priti Patel, the MP for the Witham Constituency has called in to see the Witham team working as part of Eastlight Community Homes’ All-In community programme.  The Witham Team, which consists of five members, are tackling social isolation affecting residents in Witham.  They sat down with the MP at their HQ in Templars Hub on Friday 14th October, to fill her in on their progress so far.

Eastlight Community Homes, the resident-led housing association which has more 12,500 social homes in the East of England, has recruited four All-In teams of five local people who have been asked to dedicate a year of their life to one goal; the creation of a bold solution that tackles a major social issue impacting their community. The second part of their mission is to make their bold solution actually happen.   The Witham team has been researching their subject, including having an event at URC and a pop-up stall outside of the Witham Hub in the Grove Centre, to talk to local people about their experiences of social isolation.

After the meeting, Priti said: “I was very pleased to meet the Witham team.  They have a subject that is very high on my agenda following the experiences we all had during the Covid pandemic, which certainly exacerbated the problem. People living alone, are particularly vulnerable to becoming isolated and it is something that we as a society have a responsibility to tackle and I’m very encouraged by the progress the Witham Team is making.”

Community Entrepreneur, Joanne Jackson said: “It was great to see Priti and to have the opportunity to talk her through our progress on this important issue.  We look forward to making a real impression on social isolation for the community of Witham and having Priti’s support means a lot.”

More information about Eastlight Community Homes is available at www.eastlighthomes.co.uk.

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