00:00Hi, I'm Stephen and I'm the Deputy Director at Helix Arts.
00:04Helix Arts is a community arts organisation based in North Tyneside
00:08and we've been using arts to create change in communities for more than 40 years.
00:14So this funding is really, really important to us
00:17because it's almost double the current amount of funding that we have
00:22for our creative health programme.
00:24So it's going to make a really, really big difference to people and communities
00:28across North Tyneside.
00:31The programme brings together arts, culture and health partners
00:35to provide non-clinical, person centred support through activities
00:39like dance, music, journalism and visual art.
00:42These are aimed at tackling physical, mental and emotional health challenges,
00:46particularly among people at risk of social isolation.
00:51Creative Health is using arts and culture and heritage
00:55to produce projects that can help people think about their own health and wellbeing
01:02and express any issues, positive things, negative things they can through art and creativity.
01:09Be creative, learn new skills, but also crucially to do that together with people.
01:16And so our Better Connect programme is literally, which is our arts and our creative health programme,
01:22Better Connect is all about bringing people together and they make new friendships.
01:28And it's through making new friendships that often people find that they come every week.
01:33They're making new friendships. They're doing stuff outside of our groups.
01:37They go into shops, they go into the theatre themselves and everything else.
01:41The main thing is, is that they feel less lonely and less isolated.
01:45And I think especially, I mean, it's been a big problem, especially in the North East,
01:50it's recognised and in the poorer communities even more so,
01:53that loneliness and isolation has been a big problem and a big driver for other health problems as well, of all sorts.
02:00And then I think that since COVID has just got worse and we really began developing this project,
02:11our creative health programme during COVID as a response to that.
02:16And obviously it's developed on since there, but at the core of what we do,
02:20we've always realised that when you see people, they're making art, they're doing stuff,
02:25they're painting, they're making film, they're making poems,
02:28but they're talking to each other as well.
02:30And for some people, they tell us that that's the only time they get to talk to people,
02:34or new people, meet new people in the whole week.
02:37And so it's really, really valuable for those sorts of things.
02:42The funding will allow Helix Arts to reach up to 400 new participants across North Tyneside here
02:47and expand its work addressing loneliness, a key health concern in the region.
02:53According to the latest Community Life survey, the North East has the highest levels of social isolation in England.
02:59End
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