With all the buzz and excitement around the production, events and shoots of the GUCFS throughout the year, many often forget those who are at the heart of what we do: the charities we support and the causes they serve. We take this moment to connect with past charitable partners, the Glasgow’s Golden Generation and Glasgow’s Women’s Aid and reflect on the commendable work they do, turbulent times they have weathered and how we can all can continue to offer our support.
Tell us a bit about the charity and the work you do?
Glasgow’s Golden Generation
Glasgow’s Golden Generation has been supporting older adults in Glasgow since 1948. The charity was originally named Glasgow’s Old People’s Welfare Association but this was changed to celebrate 70 years of the charity back in 2018. The charity has 5 key services – Befriending, Welfare and Careline Service, Day Care Centres, Digital Service and Weekly social clubs. All of these services work together to ensure older adults receive the care they need in their “autumn years” that is, as they grow older.
We used to be called “Glasgow’s Old People’s Welfare Association” until 2018 and latterly when we told people our name there were raised eyebrows at best and “old people?!” at worst! What had been acceptable back in 1948 really wasn’t the right way to talk about older adults in the 21st century and our service users were telling us they didn’t like the name anymore. At that point we were celebrating the charity’s 70th anniversary and we came up with a few options including things like “Senior Citizens Glasgow” but our service users were not keen on that. We eventually hit on Golden Generation after talking to older adults about them being in the autumn years of their lives. It also has the nice connotations of a golden generation being especially gifted and as biased as we may sound, we think we do have a group of very gifted older adults! Retirement and beyond should be the golden years of your life and we work hard to make that possible for older adults in Glasgow.
Glasgow’s Women's Aid
Since 1973, we have been supporting women, children and young people experiencing domestic abuse. Over the years, we have developed a range of services to ensure we give survivors the best support that we can – from our refuges for survivors fleeing domestic abuse; to our Outreach, Play Therapy and Follow-on services; to our peer-support groups; to the resources we produce for survivors like our ‘Court Ordered Child Contact’ booklet. One service that may be particularly relevant for university students is our ‘Enough!!’ service (@EnoughByGWA on Instagram) – which supports 13–19-year-olds experiencing abuse in their own relationships. The ‘Enough!!’ helpline runs every Thursday from 5:30-7pm on 0141 553 2022.
We also aim to raise awareness and improve widespread understandings of domestic abuse through campaigning and bespoke training for organisations or individuals. Our training covers the feminist model of domestic abuse, impact and trauma, coercive control and how to respond to a domestic abuse situation. We know the importance of addressing myths and responsibly increasing widespread understanding of domestic abuse. Get in touch if you would like to sign up to training!
What gives your team drive and spirit?
Glasgow’s Golden Generation
I’m sure everyone would answer in a slightly different way, but at the heart of it, our older adults give us all drive and spirit. Especially over the pandemic we have seen vulnerable older adults just “get on with it” despite it a really difficult time for them. Our older adults have been lonely and isolated, many even before Covid and the pandemic has only made this worse and they’ve taken it on with what can only be described as Dunkirk Spirit. Hearing service users talk about the difference the charity makes to them really inspires us to work harder and achieve more. Our digital project is a prime example of this – in 2019 we didn’t have one tablet device between us, now our service users have 200!
Recently a nice example of something that inspired our team spirit was seeing a lady in her 90s start following us on Facebook and interacting with us. We realised quickly that the lady was one of our own service users who had joined Facebook thanks to our project. To see her being able to use it to follow us was a really lovely moment.
Glasgow’s Women's Aid
Every day, we are driven by the desire to provide the best support we can for the women, children and young people who we support. Grounded in feminist principals, we are passionate about tackling domestic abuse and gender inequality (a cause and consequence of domestic abuse). Positive in approach, we wholeheartedly believe that an equal world is possible – a world free of domestic abuse.
How did the donation made by the GUCFS make a difference?
Glasgow’s Golden Generation
We couldn’t do what we do without donations from organisations, supporters and groups like GUCFS. As a small charity we are fully reliant on donations so quite simply donations directly support beneficiaries. If we see a reduction in funding from year to year that limits what we are able to do. That said when groups like GUCFS come on board they help us achieve so much more.
The donation made by GUCFS made a huge difference to GGG, especially given it was during the pandemic. To have that steady trickle (and often waves!) of funding coming in over the year gave us the confidence to keep going. Without it we couldn’t have achieved what we did in terms of support calls, food deliveries and operational costs over the year. We really can’t thank GUCFS enough on behalf of both the charity and its service users.
It was also inspiring! Students were walking marathons and doing challenges halfway across the world. The year hasn’t been what I’m sure any students have hoped for but like our older adults, we saw everyone making the best of the situation. To have raised so much without even having a live fashion show is just unbelievable!
Glasgow’s Women's Aid
Every donation we receive goes directly to supporting women, children and young people who have experienced domestic abuse and we are so grateful for the £43,047 raised by the GUCFS. With this money, we were able to recruit a dedicated Crisis Support worker to run the helpline and give survivors a consistent person to speak to. To put this into context, 3319 women were supported in our Crisis Support service in 2020-2021 – a crucial period, given the rise of domestic abuse since lockdown.
What non-remunerative support did you receive from GUCFS?
Glasgow’s Golden Generation
One of the loveliest things to come out of support from GUCFS has been students volunteering with the charity. There have been some lovely, unlikely friendships struck up between students stuck in Shanghai and Grannies living in Glasgow this year! Volunteers from GUCFS threw themselves into things and really got involved with the charity. One volunteer called the bingo on our app every week, others became befrienders and others helped out in the day centres with parcels. Seeing the intergenerational aspect of working with GUCFS has been a highlight of the partnership. Many of our older adults don’t have families or grandchildren so are keen to hear what “the young ones” are doing these days!
Glasgow’s Women's Aid
We know how important awareness raising is and are very grateful for the widespread awareness raising brought about by the GUCFS. The more people know of our service, the more people who donate, sign up to training, see our campaigns on social media and – of course – know how to access support from us.
Have any new challenges arisen over the last few years?
Glasgow’s Golden Generation
Covid has obviously been the biggest, unexpected challenge that’s ever hit the charity. However, we adapted quickly and were able to respond to the needs of older adults which I think says a lot for our way of working. We know our older adults well and they feel they can tell us what they need so food parcels began being delivered before Boris even declared lockdown.
Like all charities, funding will always be a challenge for the charity. We need continued support to deliver our services and support older adults. In the charity sector this will never change, there will always be an element of vying for funding. That said, we have a solid, long running and established charity with a good supporter base we can turn to for help.
Glasgow’s Women's Aid
Covid-19 brought about its own specific set of challenges for our service. While Covid-19 does not cause domestic abuse (only abusers are responsible for their actions), the pandemic escalated abuse, closed some routes for women to escape and put pressure on specialist services like ours. However, we responded to these challenges head-on with creativity and innovation. We opened new refuges, recruited new staff and changed some of the ways we operate in an efficient way. We have a stronger staff team of women who have used their skills and expertise to continue to support women, children and young people through this pandemic.
How can people continue to support the Glasgow Golden Generation?
Glasgow’s Golden Generation
There are so many ways to get involved with GGG. You can jump out of a plane for us, donate, volunteer or take part in Kiltwalk. The list is endless and if there’s something you’d like to do that we haven’t mentioned just let us know! You can find out more about us at www.glasgowgg.org.uk
Glasgow’s Women's Aid
There are so many was to support our service, including:
- Donate to Glasgow Women’s Aid! All of your donations go directly to supporting the women, children and young people who we support.
- Book domestic abuse awareness training for yourself or your workplace by contacting carolineg@glasgowwomensaid.org.uk
- Follow our social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for resources on domestic abuse, news of our service and campaigns.