Opportunities this week:

• Westbury Chemist Streatham - Covid Vaccination Marshals
• Get Set UK - Mental Health First Aiders
• Pegasus Digital Community Choir
• Age UK Phone Friends

Westbury Chemist Streatham - Covid Vaccination Marshals

Westbury Chemist on Streatham High Road are continuing to vaccinate our most vulnerable residents for Covid-19.

Once again, they’re hoping to cover two six-hour shifts of four volunteers every day. Volunteers will help to ensure the safe flow of the people being vaccinated from the time they arrive to the time they leave - checking patients are on the appointment list, checking temperatures, reassuring patients and preparing them for the vaccination room. One volunteer will relieve the others for short breaks, make sure that patients leave safely with details of their vaccine batch on vaccination cards that will be given by the injectors.

Shifts will be 8am-2pm and 2pm-8pm every day, including weekends. The ‘welcome’ volunteer may need to be outdoors for some or all of the time, so please bring warm and weatherproof layers. PPE will be provided. Social distancing will be managed. If you can help, please indicate shifts that you can do ALL of - i.e. please only tick three shifts if you can do all three shifts. Experience has informed Westbury's that one sure shift is more helpful that half a dozen possibles. Can you help?

Get Set UK - Mental Health First Aiders

Get Set UK deliver services in employability and skills to a wide range of job seekers. They're offering free four day courses designed to teach people how to spot the signs and symptoms of mental ill health.

Mental Health First Aid MHFA training is the mental health equivalent of a physical first aid course. It won’t teach you to be a therapist, but it will teach you to listen, reassure and respond, even in a crisis – and even potentially stop a crisis from happening. Training in mental health first aid will give you an understanding of how to support positive wellbeing and tackle stigma in the world around you. You’ll learn to recognise warning signs of mental ill health, and develop the skills and confidence to approach and support someone while keeping yourself safe, as well as how to empower someone to access the support they might need for recovery or successful management of symptoms.

NOTE: To be eligible you need to be over 19, live in Lambeth and be currently unemployed. Could you become a Mental Health First Aider?

Pegasus Digital Community Choir

Pegasus Opera Company is a registered charity and the home of multicultural opera. They have a long track record of staging high-quality productions and exist to create opportunities for artists from all backgrounds.

Pegasus Digital Community Choir is a music-based project at the heart of Pegasus Opera Company’s work. The aim of the choir is to develop positive mental health and well-being and relieve the isolation of choir members by utilising music and lyrics to achieve a shared musical goal. The online choir aims to bring people together, build a digital community, share in the joy of music, use a hobby to heal, and just to sing for the love it .

The choir is free and open to anyone aged 10 years and over, all abilities welcome! They have an experienced choirmaster, and work towards a performance at the end of each term. Their music is accessible and fun, but they are not scared of a challenge! Currently they run online every Monday night from 7pm-8.30pm. Let them know if you'd like to join, or find out more.

Age UK Phone Friends

Age UK Lambeth is an independent local charity working in Lambeth to offer support and services to older people.

As we move into the winter months and with COVID still a topic of daily conversation, Age UK are still actively recruiting for volunteers. Whether you would like to volunteer to have a 'phone friend' and be matched with an elderly member of the community and have a weekly conversation that will help and reduce isolation and loneliness, or you have some extra time and would like to help elderly members of the community who may be shielding or isolating - whatever way you may able to help, they would love to hear from you.