Thursday 29-06-2017 - 15:20

This year, the local retirement home in Carmarthen (Cartref Cynnes) got in touch with the SU, enquiring as to whether some of our students would be interested in using the space and facilities within their building for rehearsing, socialising or even to take up some casual work. Keen to discover more, myself and Anya O’Callaghan, the Student Trustee for Carmarthen, visited Cartref Cynnes and spoke with the staff there about some methods to get students into the area and help benefit the residents and students at UWTSD in Carmarthen.

We came up with ‘The Pen Pal Project’, where we would match some of the residents of Cartref Cynnes and some student volunteers from UWTSD who would write letters to eachother.

The reasoning behind this was a growing trend in loneliness for both the elderly and also students over the last few years, with Age UK finding that 3.9 million older people saying that television is their main form of company, and 200,000 saying they haven't had a conversation with friends of family for a month. Professor Siobhan O’Neill paints a similar picture with the life of some students, saying that 60% of students have anxiety difficulties and that student life can sometimes be ‘fraught with loneliness and anxiety’.

We have had 5 individuals and one couple from Cartref Cynnes who were all matched with student pen pals within an hour of being advertised on social media. The response was AMAZING, despite many students having to juggle exams, assessments and jobs. There were many more students willing to give up their time who were disappointed to have missed out on the opportunity, but hopefully we can continue to expand the programme and match more residents with more students!

Despite the busy time of year for our students, they all handed their first letters in promptly, and we are really pleased that the first few replies from Cartref Cynnes have started to make their way back to the SU. While the project is very much still a work-in-progress, it is something that has proven to be really popular, and an area which we are keen to focus on within the upcoming academic year in order to help out and give a little back to our community. A HUGE thank you to all of our pen-pals, to Anya for her help in setting up the meetings and her ideas, to