A 'Chain of Hope': the Warm Welcome Campaign
- katherineriley7
- May 23
- 3 min read
By David Barclay, Warm Welcome Campaign Director
This Loneliness Awareness Week the Warm Welcome Campaign and our network of over 5000 community spaces across the UK are proud to be lending our weight to reducing loneliness.
Warm Welcome started three years ago at the height of the energy crisis, when it was clear that millions of people would struggle to keep themselves and their families warm through the winter. What emerged was a network of thousands of ‘Warm Spaces’ – faith groups, libraries, community centres and many more who stepped into the gap to support people in their community.
But what we learned was that though people might come for the warmth, they stayed for the welcome and the belonging and connection they found. Our impact analysis of warm spaces from that first winter found a remarkable change in people’s experiences of loneliness, from nearly 30% saying they always or often felt lonely before coming to the Space, to just 6% feeling that way since they started coming.
We have heard time and again from guests that Warm Welcome Spaces are a ‘lifeline’ for them, and often the thing that they look forward to most each week and that keeps them going through the dark winter months.
This insight helped us to realise that Warm Welcome was much more than a response to fuel poverty and the Cost-of-Living Crisis, it was a movement for community and reconnection. And so, the Campaign has blossomed into what Founding Patron Gordon Brown has called a ‘Chain of Hope’, with Spaces open all year round in every community across the UK.
We have a bold ambition to make sure that 100% of the UK population have great local access to thriving, inclusive and sustainable community spaces, and we are making great progress, with 68% of people currently living within a 30-minute walk of a registered Warm Welcome Space.
Joining forces with Loneliness Awareness Week is an absolute no-brainer for us at Warm Welcome. We have seen the profound impact that loneliness can have on people, but also the transformation that can occur when people find connection and belonging. And so, we are determined to work with as many others as we can to open up the conversation on loneliness – who it affects and how – as well as promoting the places and activities that can help to alleviate it.
As one of our Warm Welcome Space leaders put it recently, “If there’s a positive from the difficult times in which we find ourselves, it is that is has provided us with a common purpose, and reminded us all of what, perhaps, we had lost sight of - our obligation to look after each other.” That’s the driving spirit behind Warm Welcome, and it’s why we’re so delighted to be supporting Loneliness Awareness Week.
