Great turnout for Virtual Village information morning
On Friday May 11th, HBH Senior Living and East Health Trust held an information morning so that interested locals could learn more about our Virtual Village initiative.
HBH Senior Living CEO, Bonnie Robinson, presented findings from a recent community survey exploring whether a Village without Walls @ Howick would support older people to age well and overcome loneliness and social isolation. Results indicated that there was a high level of interest in the concept, with loneliness, health and transport being the main concerns for respondents.
Bonnie talked about how a virtual village doesn’t duplicate existing services, but rather works to fill gaps in services to combat loneliness and isolation. The key focus is on community building – introducing older people to each other so that they can form small communities of mutual support and friendship. She spoke about how, despite many services being available, many older people are ‘lonely in a crowd’ and how a virtual village is designed to help overcome this by getting people engaged and helping one another.
Anne Williamson from East Health Trust also spoke about the benefits of the concept. This was followed by a presentation by Helen L’Orange from The Hub (a virtual village in Waverton, Sydney), showing how well the virtual village concept has worked for them.
Following the positive community feedback, the next step is to form an establishment committee to take the concept to the next level – watch this space for further updates.
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