What Hapi are doing to help during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak
Lisa Voyle, Senior Project Officer with Newydd, shares how we are continuing to run our Hapi programme to help keep the community happy and healthy during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
“The Hapi (Healthy, Aspiring, Prosperous and Inclusive) project was set up in 2015, using National Lottery Funding to deliver health and wellbeing programmes in the Rhydfelin area for two years. Due to the success of the programmes, and the positive feedback we had from people taking part, we were able to extend Hapi for a further five years and expand the delivery of activities to over two thirds of Rhondda Cynon Taf.
Through the programme, we have been able to do cooking classes, to teach people how to cook healthy meals on a budget, training courses like first aid, and we have been able to offer work experience opportunities at Newydd Maintenance. We also lead couch to 5k running clubs, stress management sessions with mindfulness professionals, and volunteering sessions for anyone who wants to get involved with running aspects of the programme.
Due to how popular these projects are, and how involved the communities have been, we were keen to continue running the programme despite the Coronavirus outbreak. So we went digital! We are now using Facebook Live to run fitness classes for families, a cooking programme, and the very popular singing sessions.
In one week on Facebook, we have reached over 20,000 people all over the world, as far as Australia and Canada.
Like many others, we have had to adapt our way of working, but running Hapi on Facebook has given us another way of communicating with residents, and we are getting a lot of positive comments from everyone getting involved with the new digital sessions.”
