West Chesterton Mutual Aid

Support to the community in West Chesterton during the Covid-19 Crisis.

Do you need help?

You can talk to someone right now.
Email: mutual.west.chesterton@gmail.com
Phone number: 07593 354560

Guide to getting help: https://tinyurl.com/uo35cd7

Who are we?

West Chesterton Mutual Aid is a group of residents of West Chesterton, Cambridge, who want to help their neighbours during the Covid-19 outbreak.

We are volunteering support for the local community in response to the COVID-19 pandemic 2020. West Chesterton Mutual Aid is working with Chesterton Community Association (Registered Charity No. 1139163) as lead ward volunteer organisation with the Cambridge City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council, and work in partnership with other community, resident and church groups. Privacy policy

We are not a company or charity, and we are trying to build in processes and infrastructure as we go along. That means things will change fast, as we learn to make sense of this emerging situation, and learn how to respond and try to keep people safe.

How do you become a member?

The only criteria is the willingness to support the ideas behind Mutual Aid, and to live in West Chesterton Cambridge. If you are in a nearby ward, we won't kick you out either :)

Email updates

We send updates to volunteers, and anyone else who signs up. We use Mailchimp to send. These will go out weekly-ish, at the start of the week. Sign up for our email updates

Social media

Please join the channel appropriate for the type of involvement you want.

Important note for ALL public WhatsApp channels:
Even in times of crisis, we must keep ourselves safe and be mindful of the risks. By joining the groups you will be revealing your WhatsApp profile name and telephone number to other members of the group.

By joining any of our social media channels, you must be aware and agree to our safeguarding and incident reporting processes

You can talk to anyone in confidence, text or whatsapp 07593 354560

Requests for help: INeedHelp-westchesterton
WhatsApp. Looking for an item of food or essential supplies? You need someone to run an errand for you, or give you advice? This is the place. Only say your street and rough details, its a public channel. If you don't get a response, flag down an admin to look for help another way.

Social connection and chat: Chat-westchesterton
WhatsApp. A place to share information and connect to others in the area.
Post helpful links and resources for your neighbours.

Providing help: ICanHelp-Westchesterton
WhatsApp. If you would like to help, please follow the instructions in the volunteer guides. Requests for errands received by phone, email and the INeedHelp channel are posted here if not directly sorted out.

West Chesterton Mutual Aid - Facebook Group
Not much goes on with our Facebook group. We created it so that people who were looking for us could find us. If you do use Facebook, there are a few groups we would recommend you to be a part of:

Online meetings and talks

We use Zoom for live events. Sign up to the chat WhatsApp channel or our emails to get the link.

Pub Quiz - Fridays at 7pm.

Team meeting sync - Sundays at 4pm - check-in for coordinators and volunteers - see how everything is going. Everyone welcome

Talks, workshops, conversation starters - Talks and conversation starters to share information, skills and interests. Talks can last anywhere between 5 mins and ½ hour - with space for open questions, and generally socialising afterwards. Grab yourself a brew and join us! Got an idea for an event? Get in touch - reply to this email, or put yourself down on the schedule.

Would you like to volunteer?

Hooray! It is so heartening to see so many people wanting to help.

Helping is not just about picking up prescriptions and shopping. There are many people working behind the scenes making it all work, and get to the next level. Many roles are self-isolation friendly. Call-centre, coordinators...what do you want to do?

Guidance for volunteers

Scams and fraud

Sound advice - keep safe everyone.

Citizen's advice information

Some advice to make sure you protect yourself and others - by being careful what you share online

Safeguarding

We aim to carry out our mutual aid activities as safely as possible. We constantly review and improve our processes. We’ve put some thoughts into how we do things to ensure the safety of our volunteers and the people we aim to help.

If you have any concerns, or would like to make a suggestion, please email us or leave a comment. You can raise a concern directly with the council.

West Chesterton Mutual Aid Safeguarding Policy

Mental health

Some online resources from neighbourhood networks

Free resources:

Health and Safety

Page last updated 25 May 2020 20:38.