Burngreave Messenger October 2020 Issue
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OCTOBER 2020 • ISSUE 148 Voice of the Burngreave Community Testing times in Burngreave Story and photo by Tim Neal A third local testing centre has opened in Burngreave to help prevent the spread of Covid-19 across the city and within our communities. This is clearly good news for the whole of Sheffield. Based at Gower Street Car Park in Burngreave, the new unit is open between 8am-8pm, allowing people with symptoms to get tested. If anyone has symptoms, you should get a test. The swab test takes less than a minute. It is important for your own health and your family’s but it is also crucial to help keep everyone safe. Although the Council arranged the location of the site at Gower Street, it is not responsible for the testing operation or appointments. These are all done run by central government, which is also responsible for the If you cannot get an appointment right away, stay at home national Test, Trace and Isolate contact tracing system. and continue to self-isolate until an appointment comes available for you. In making testing easier and more accessible, the Council is supporting everyone to get tested for free. As a reminder, all Sheffield testing centres are only accessible if you have booked an appointment. Please do When you book your test using the national portal or by not attend a site unless you have booked a test as you will calling 119, you will be provided with a test site address in be turned away and asked to book an appointment. Only the city to attend at a designated date and time. attend the test centre you have been allocated on your booking through the national portal. Please DO NOT attend at any other site other than your allocated test centre as you will be turned away. You must These are the locations of the other Local Testing Sites in go to the location listed on your test booking. Sheffield: There are no longer any walk-ins at any of the Local The Sharrow Local Testing Centre is based at Alderson Road Testing Centres including the one in Burngreave. This is Car Park, Sharrow, S2 4LG (down the road from London due to national laboratory capacity issues affecting local Road Pharmacy). testing availability. You can only attend if you have an appointment. Please continue to book an appointment The Darnall Local Testing Centre is based at Station Road online www.nhs.uk/coronavirus or by calling 119. Car Park, Darnall, S9 4JT. See centre pages to find out more. 2 www.burngreavemessenger.org Community Contact Tracers Story by Carrie Hedderwick Thank you to the passer-by who took the photo As we go to press we know there will be extra restrictions announced that will be imposed before you read this. We can’t be certain that we can produce and distribute another edition before Christmas, but we hope so. Burngreave has shown great resilience and this edition showcases just a few examples of this as well as highlighting a drive to rediscover Introducing the Sheffield Together, with support from some sort of “normality”. Many Community Contact Tracers (SCCT) SCCT, we have developed 'Covid have experienced hardship and & the Burngreave Fir Vale group Confidence' training to equip some have suffered bereavement. SCCT, a group of community existing and new volunteers with However, there remains great faith activists, local volunteers, former best practice and advice about in the future. GPs, and public health doctors, Covid. These volunteers are already ran a contact tracing pilot project known and trusted within their own Messenger info earlier this year, believing that communities - Yemeni, Pakistani, a well organised and funded Roma , Somali and others. The Next deadline: 24th November community-based contract tracing volunteers trained in Burngreave, Issue published: 12th December system could have a significant Fir vale, and Darnall will be Covid Burngreave Messenger Ltd. impact on the spread of Covid-19. Champions, able to better advise Abbeyfield Park House and support people and families in Abbeyfield Road, People with Covid were referred to difficult situations . GPs should also Sheffield S4 7AT the project from a local GP surgery; be included in plans to control the Telephone: (0114) 242 0564 those people were then allocated spread of the virus. to a trained volunteer ‘tracer’, who [email protected] offered daily support by phone. Please get in touch about the www.burngreavemessenger.org People welcomed the support that training or if you want to be Follow us on Twitter the daily call gave them in coping involved with the Burngreave Fir @TheBMessenger with self-isolation, the illness, and Vale Community Contact Tracers www.facebook.com/ any other problems arising over the group. burngreavemessenger 14 days. www.instagram.com/ Contact [email protected]; use the burngreavemessenger Four volunteers from Burngreave/ Burngreave Messenger webpage to Fir Vale were recruited for training. find more details and articles. We decided that it would be good This issue’s team: Deborah to see how we could use the The Burngreave/Fir Vale group are Blencowe, Martin Currie, Ingrid training to offer support here, in this also helping out in practical ways Hanson, Carrie Hedderwick, neighbourhood. - having raised some money from Saleema Imam, Douglas Johnson, Sheffield Trades Council and Unite Graham Jones, Jamie Marriott, We’ve liaised with local Community. John Mellor, David McLeish and organisations who have been Tim Neal. doing stalwart work throughout Contact tracing services need to be the pandemic - Firvale Community based locally. And people in each Hub, ACT, the Hadfield Institute, the community should be supported so Sheffield Roma Network, Pitsmoor that if they have symptoms, they Adventure Playground, and other will self-isolate immediately, get a groups. test, and inform their close contacts. The Burngreave Messenger is a community newspaper with editorial independence, funded by the Lottery Community Fund and advertising. Registered Charity: 1130836. All content is copyright Burngreave Messenger Ltd or its voluntary contributors. October 2020 • Issue 148 Think you have symptoms of coronovirus? Get a free test. 3 Find out more in our middle pages. Roma community report Story by David Kandrac, Independent Roma Consultant & University Student The beginning of Covid-19 pandemic significantly affected neighbours safe. We also made it very clear that the tight the Roma community. There was much concern and fear restrictions that were being introduced were there also in fed by language barriers and lack of shared information order to avoid excessive pressure on the National Health among the community. System. There were also issues of conflicting reports coming via I would like to personally thank organisations working with Slovakian media that caused considerable concern amongst the Roma communities for doing their very best to keep the Roma population. Slovakia closed its borders more us informed about the corona virus pandemic. From my quickly than the UK and in response some members of perspective, the vast majority of the Roma community the Roma community felt unsafe here. People considered continue to stick to the Government guidelines. They wear whether they should go to Slovakia to protect themselves. masks, keep a safe distance and meet only within their Some families took this option once the schools closed. bubble groups. Early in the pandemic I was contacted by the Sheffield Overall through this period, as with most communities, City Council and as a result I delivered a live broadcast via the number of Covid 19 cases has been very limited. The Facebook. Here I shared relevant information from the gov. Roma Church groups have used their influence to support uk websites and answered many questions in the Romani government messages. The Roma community has not been language. In order to avoid mistakes, I was supported in able to celebrate birthdays, engagements, or weddings in this by a British GP with whom I had worked previously. traditional fashion. This is something that many people have missed but we recognise we need to contribute to the We aimed to reassure the Roma and to give them overall security and health of the population. confidence that they could keep themselves and their It’s a matter of faith Story by Christopher Benjamin and Tim Neal | Photo by Christopher Benjamin With strong links into Burngreave, the New Testament Church of God sits at the bottom of Burngreave near the river. I asked them how they'd been coping during the pandemic: “Some people have no family I don't know how they cope. I'm all right I've got my husband and my children around me.” We met in the Family Life Centre: “We come and prepare meals every Tuesday for the Brother Wint, Brother Edwards & Sister Benjamin homeless. People don't come in, they used to. We stand out there, prepare a meal and give it to them. stressful. When you go to the supermarket to or you go on the buses. I'm enjoying being at the soup kitchen as “I'm a person that prays a lot, if it wasn't for the Grace of well, it gets me out of the house and gives me something God I would maybe be in a depressive state. It's a matter to do.” of having strong faith.” She explained how people in the Afro-Carribean Sister Benjamin, who lives in Burngreave, said she had community have responded: been coping quite well: “We do look out for one another. Because we go around “I've got the garden and find that very therapeutic. with food parcels. We've been doing it since the Otherwise this pandemic has been a bit too much lockdown.