2010 European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion
RSVP was awarded European funding via the Department of Work and Pensions to deliver a project targeted at older people in the UK that suffer poverty or social exclusion. Our track record of delivering projects that reach out to the most vulnerable or excluded older people in England, Scotland and Wales was key to our securing this funding.
The project aimed to raise awareness of routes out of poverty and social exclusion amongst older people, share good practice and information with stakeholders, provide a practical demonstration project of help by volunteers which could be replicated by others, and leave a legacy of information and volunteers that could help others in the future.
RSVP will engage and train 60 volunteers as community networkers to speak to groups of older people and to stakeholder organisations about how they and others can help. We will also engage 400 volunteers to pass on information to 4,000 vulnerable older people in their communities. We will develop a toolkit to provide information and signpost people to where they can get help. A key element of the project in getting the message across will be recording digital stories so that older people can talk about their experience of poverty and social exclusion, and how they were able to improve their quality of life.
