Cadbury and Manchester United have teamed up behind a campaign aimed at reaching out to elderly people who may be experiencing the pain of loneliness.
The club is supporting Cadbury’s ‘Donate your words’ campaign, which highlights the issues of loneliness amongst Britain’s older generation.
Eleven ‘Guests of Honour’ were invited to stand on the iconic Old Trafford pitch and shake hands with the Manchester United first-team ahead of the Premier League match against Watford over the weekend.
The Guests of Honour for the game were all local fans aged 65 and over who have experienced loneliness. It is an issue which affects hundreds of thousands of older people living within communities and aims to inspire people to ‘Donate your words’ to those who need them the most.
The campaign comes following recent research, conducted by Cadbury and Age UK, which revealed that in a typical week, almost 2.6 million people aged 65 and over speak to three or fewer others, with more than 225,000 often going a week without speaking to anyone.
The survey found that simple, small gestures can play a part in helping to tackle loneliness as over six million older people claimed a few minutes of conversation would make a huge difference to their week.
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Older people said they’d feel more confident to go outside their home, if they knew someone was smiling when in a queue, or if anyone had asked how their day was going.
Perhaps our more sociable communities in Ireland are not quite as isolating but even if our numbers do not run to millions it is a simple way to combat something that can be desperately sad.
“We’re proud to announce this partnership with Manchester United and to continue supporting Age UK with our ‘Donate your words’ campaign,” said Colin O’Toole, Associate Marketing Director at Cadbury.
“Loneliness is such a huge problem amongst the older generation, and we are encouraging Manchester United fans and the wider nation to engage with this cause by donating their words at every opportunity to lonely, older people in their communities.”
“We are also looking forward to working with Manchester United in the future on further collaborations of this nature.”
“We’re pleased to start our partnership with Cadbury by supporting their ‘Donate your words’ campaign.”
“The Club is encouraging all fans to give a few moments of their time to speak to older people around them who might welcome a thoughtful conversation. Any small gesture and interaction can play a part in helping to help tackle loneliness amongst our older generation.”
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Image Credit: Manchester United and Cadbury
