CommUnity News Issue 1 18th May 2020 It’s all right to ask for help At a recent meeting of Lochalsh Collaboration, it was agreed there was a need to start a cam- paign to persuade everyone to realise that it’s all right to ask for help during this time. Neighbours are ready and willing to help and there is government funding to support initiatives. This is a piece written by Marianne Worthy of Kintail who has asked for help and realises how crucial that help is. By asking for help, you are helping your community and the NHS, as we all want to keep eve- ryone safe. Your community is there for you, so remember to ask for help. Because I am over 70 years old, live on my she boxes my order of butter, milk etc so all I own, and had a cough and cold when we went have to do is tap my card and jump in the car. into lock down I decided to self-isolate myself. I Clive and Carol from Kintail Crafts will do ex- could never have done this without the amazing actly the same, they have all been wonderful. help from the local community. Anne Campbell With the weather having been amazing Donald has been fantastic, she phones me every week Mackintosh from Loch Duich plants brings over before she goes to Kyle and brings me all my compost and bedding plants so I really do feel fresh vegetables and fruit. I email Lochalsh I am the luckiest person in the world. I don’t Butchers, and they have said they would deliver know what I would have done if it hadn’t been but I have always been lucky and someone has for the kindness of the local community, I am kindly picked up my order which is all ready and so grateful to them all. I wish I could do some- waiting. When I phone Linda Carr at Inverinate, thing in return. Lochalsh Collaboration leads Lochalsh Community Response Lochalsh Collaboration, set up a year ago, has really come into its own as a way of quickly col- laborating on community responses to the Covid-19 crisis. The Lochalsh Community Response group meets weekly, by Zoom, led by Pam Noble, Chair of Kyle & Lochalsh Community Trust CommUnity News Welcome message from Pam Noble, Chair of KLCT Kyle & Lochalsh Community Trust is communities in Lochalsh and think of how we pleased to welcome you to the first Lochalsh- could help resolve some of them. So we wide newsletter keeping you up to date with all planned a big consultation to try and include that’s going on throughout Lochalsh. We’re in- as many people as possible, but we knew cluding information about things that are hap- that we would need somebody to coordinate pening in the Kyleakin area as there have al- all the work. Around summer of last year the ways been strong connections between Kyle Scottish Government announced a fund – In- and Kyleakin. We’re grateful to Highlands and vesting in Communities – to support commu- Islands Enterprise and the Scottish Govern- nities wanting to work together to find solu- ment for providing funding to enable us to get tions for local issues. It was perfect timingso this up and running during the Covid-19 crisis. we applied to the fund and were lucky to be While the newsletter has come about because awarded a grant to employ a worker to of the current situation, we hope it will continue take on this project. after the crisis is over and life has returned to We were really pleased to appoint Su- the new normal. san Walker early in March with a start date of We’ve been working for over a year now mid-April. However as we all know, we went with representatives of community councils, de- into lockdown on 23 March so our plans for a velopment trusts and other organisations in consultation have been put on hold and Su- each of the seven community council areas in san has instead been working on the Loch- Lochalsh. We’ve been looking at ways of work- alsh Community Response. You can find out ing together to tackle issues that affect the more about what she and others have been whole of our area and we’ve called ourselves doing elsewhere in this newsletter. the Lochalsh Collaboration – it’s maybe not a I hope you enjoy this first issue. brilliant name but it describes the fact that we’re Please let us know what you think, and all trying to work together for the common please send us news and updates from your good. area. We’d love for this to continue and help The first thing we wanted to do was find see us through the present difficult times and out what were the main issues affecting all the into the future. Funding for Lochalsh Community Response By Jo Wawrzyczek Kyle & Lochalsh Community Trust a new Lochalsh newsletter, a virtual meeting (KLCT) has secured £24,125 on behalf of the space, food vouchers, meals on wheels and Lochalsh Community Response for projects videos with Pilates classes and bike mainte- that will support local people during the Covid- nance and repair advice. KLCT has also ap- 19 pandemic. The funding comes from the proached local groups and community coun- Scottish Government’s Supporting Communi- cils if they required any funding and three ties Fund that aims to support small scale com- came forward with proposals. We were munity resilience and has an initial pot of pleased to support the Lochalsh Youth Com- £40m. munity Trust, Kyleakin Connections as well The fund is open to various community as a food project delivered by Kyleakin & organisations including those that are not reg- Kylerhea Community Council. istered charities, however the money can only We expect to submit further funding be allocated through community anchor organi- applications in the coming weeks so if your sations, such as KLCT, that are already play- local group requires funding to support your ing a key role in providing services within the members or local people with services or ac- local community and have established net- tivities that are designed purely as a re- works and connections through the communi- sponse to Covid-19, please get in touch with ty. Jo on [email protected] and we The Lochalsh Community Response is might be able to help. using the funds to support its projects, such as 2 CommUnity News Food Share programme by Annie Penrod The Food Share programme is a joint venture needing to shield. They organised a wonder- between the Lochalsh Youth Community Trust ful group of volunteers who are taking this and the Kyle and Lochalsh Community Trust. food and delivering it to people who are in LYCT has been working with the local Kyle need. The programme became quite suc- branch of the Co-Op to arrange taking their cessful and management of it was passed to food waste on the day that it is going out of KLCT, which sourced funding to appoint my- date to be used for projects within the organi- self as a coordinator. Using the KLCT Covid- sation. During this unprecedented global 19 response helpline, locals are able to call emergency, the Youth Trust saw that this pro- and request food through this programme. gramme could be useful as a way to help lo- This programme has also expanded to include cals who are suffering due to loss of income or the Balmacara Spar, who is graciously donat- ing their food waste to a community group in Dornie who are overseeing the dis- tribution of it through their blessings box. As this crisis continues, we expect the need for food aid to rise and so have set up a Food Vouchers scheme. The Trust is grateful for all of the wonderful volunteers who have stepped up to aid this project. The Kyle Blessings Box, in the main car park 3 CommUnity News Kyle street volunteers by Kate Hathway The Kyle ‘street volunteers’ came about at the very start of the Covid lockdown around March 25th as there was no apparent re- sponse appearing in the village. Kyleakin had just organised their volunteers so that inspired us to get on with it in Kyle. A quick appeal on social media (on the ‘Community Heart’ page) led to a number of volunteers to be on hand as a named contact for their street in Kyle. A lot of the volunteers were already active in helping neighbours but the volunteer list was a way of ensuring that people wouldn’t be missed out. Using the Covid Mutual resources, post- cards with contact names were distributed around each house in the village. Most people who are self-isolating already have a good net- work of neighbours or family who help with shopping etc but there are definitely vulnerable folk who don’t have this help on tap so the vol- unteers have been brilliant from that point of view and nothing is ever too much trouble. Personally, I phone several folk who are self- Kate Hathway setting off to do a delivery isolating a few times a week to check if they need anything and most of the time I just have a chat with them and a couple of times a week but overall, it seems to work! We have a I pick up shopping or prescriptions. Money ex- WhatsApp group for sharing info or asking change is still a problem as no one has cash, questions and that is our main method of com- nor wants to handle it just now and unfortu- munication between volunteers but we’re all nately the Coop doesn’t take phone payments conscious not to fill it up with too much chat! Achmore & Stromeferry by Mary MacBeth Within our Community Council (CC) area Helen and Dawn have set up a Community we have designed, printed and distributed a lo- Support WhatsApp group to assist with sharing cal Helpline leaflet, including the Highland information about trips to the shops, so that Council Helpine number.