Council Leader Adam McVey today praised public and voluntary organisations in Edinburgh, and urged residents to be good neighbours.
He suggests those wishing to help others contact Volunteer Edinburgh for advice and information.
Newly formed community groups are encouraged to contact EVOC to help coordinate responses across the city, and arrange deliveries of food at a very local level.
‘The voluntary sector is doing an amazing job pulling everyone together and making sure people can help out appropriately following government guidelines.
‘If you are able to help others then please “Think Local and Act Local”. Where you can, offer support to your wider family, your friends and your neighbours to help ensure that they can receive the essential supplies and medicine that they may need.
‘At the moment the best thing that most people can do is still to stay at home, limit social contact and follow NHS guidelines. This really is the most important contribution that can be made to the safety and resilience of the city.’
Difficult times bring out the best in people
In unrelated but relevant news, Spurtle has been reading Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell (published by Penguin in 2009, ISBN 978-0-14-311807-7).
In it, she contends that social, ethical, and political transformations often emerge from existential crises, revealing a human capacity for purposeful altruism that is often suppressed in supposedly ‘happier’ times.
We find her arguments thought-provoking, and produce two extracts below from opposite ends of the book.
