Tag: communities

Glasgow – Online training for community groups

Glasgow like other peer cities is acutely aware of the impact that COVID-19 has had on the city’s community groups that many in the local communities rely upon. To help these groups during the public health emergency, the Glasgow Council on Voluntary Services is offering a range of free training workshops and surgeries designed to support staff, volunteers and organisations.

The workshops have been developed, planned and will be delivered in partnership with the city-wide Glasgow Capacity Building Group including  Glasgow City Council,  Volunteer Glasgow, Jobs and Business Glasgow and Glasgow Life. Surgeries will cover topics such as funding, staff furlough, homeworking and lone working, redundancy and restructure.

Contact: Joe Brady

Kyiv – Unified centre for coordination

At the request of the mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, a new centre is coordinating community, volunteer, and other organisations’ efforts to assist individual vulnerable sections of Kyiv’s population in the spread of new coronavirus infection.

Increased measures taken by the city include heightened sanitation of roads, bridges, public transport, as well as public utilities and public parts of municipally owned buildings. Further actions include the closure of all children’s playgrounds.

Read more here here and here

Contact: Maria Adomaytis

Glasgow – People make Glasgow

Scarlett Shaw (6) from Springburn thanking her local fire and ambulance crews

Glasgow Life has launched a new campaign aimed at uniting the people of Glasgow in an exhibition of positivity during the coronavirus pandemic. Tapping into a trend that has been widely embraced in recent weeks, the city is encouraging families and households across the city to create their own unique ‘People Make Glasgow’ posters and to display them alongside the rainbows already in their windows.

Continue reading “Glasgow – People make Glasgow” →

Cluj-Napoca – Tackling the social impact

The city has compiled a detailed overview of the decisions and resources put in place to tackle the impacts that the crisis is having on the most vulnerable. This measures aim to preventing situations which could lead to social marginalisation as well as increasing the quality of life while promoting the social inclusion of vulnerable persons and groups within the community. Download the document here

Contact: Emilia Botezan

Tel Aviv – Overview of measures

Tel Aviv has compiled a summary of the measures it has taken to tackle the crisis. The comprehensive report includes a range of measures, from contact and community activities with residents to education and social services, to technology and businesses support. The city has also dedicated a section to seizing opportunities and one to looking at the future after corona. You can download the document here.

Contact: Sharon Landes-Fischer

Bristol – Volunteers and fundraising

Bristol has recruited an ‘army’ of volunteers through Can Do Bristol to help with response to coronavirus. They collect and distribute food. The city is also raising funds to support the local grant giving funder, Quartet Community Foundation who launched a Coronavirus Appeal Fund with funds distributed to local communities to address need.

Contact: Paul Davies

Nuremberg – Mobile guide for refugees and migrants

Integreat is a mobile guide for refugees and migrants, used by over 60 municipalities in Germany. The contents of the mobile guide, however, are tailored to local needs and contain local information. In response to the current COVID-19 situation, multilingual information has been added to the guide. The aim is to inform and educate all citizens as best as possible – regardless of their mother tongue and background. The mobile guide is for free and for Nuremberg currently available in seven languages (German, English, French, Arabic, Farsi, Russian and Amharic). Read more here

Contact: Siegfried Zelnhefer

Portugal – Temporary citizenship rights for migrants and asylum seekers

In order to ensure as many people as possible have access to health care and other public services, the Portuguese government is offering a temporary citizenship to people who have residency applications underway. Read more here and see a compilation of good practices for migrant community outreach here

Turku – Getting the information out

Turku has turned to Google Translator to make sure all 100 languages spoken in the city could be covered to get out useful information about the pandemic as quickly as possible. Migrant organisations, large companies and the Regional State Administrative Agency have helped to spread the word about where to find this information. Read more here

Contact: Mika Akkanen

Brno – Free face masks for the homeless

Face masks are handed out for free to homeless people by the Social Care Department and the city police of Brno, Czechia. The city has set up a container to collect used masks which are disinfected and then given out again. Brno provides information on the corona measures in six languages: Czech and English, and abridged versions in Russian, Romanian, Arabic and Vietnamese. Read more here

Contact: Pavlina Sukupova

Odemira – 500 quarantine places for foreign agricultural workers

In Odemira (Portugal) reside a significant number of foreign agricultural workers who often live in close quarters. The area hasn’t had many cases of COVID-19 yet, but the municipality believes it’s just a matter of time. This is why mayor José Alberto Guerreiro has prepared a prevention plan for quarantine that takes into account the need to prevent transmission within this population. This includes making several spaces with sanitation services and possibilities to organise meals – like sports and multipurpose pavilions – available to accommodate up to 500 migrants working in agriculture. Read more (in Portuguese) here