Loneliness Awareness Week raises awareness of loneliness and empowers everyone to make connections across the UK and worldwide. Join us from 10 - 16 June 2024!
This year's theme, Random Acts of Connection, encourages everyone to increase those simple, everyday moments of connection which help us feel happier and less lonely. Get involved by hosting or joining an event on the Connection Map, learning about loneliness or making your own #RandomActsOfConnection!
We're so excited to share with you our completely refreshed website for Loneliness Awareness Week ➡️ lonelinessawarenessweek.org
What can you do?
Join in by making a #RandomActOfConnection! It can be as simple as a chat in a queue, smiling at a neighbour, reaching out to a friend, or signing up to a new activity.
Host a Connection Event to bring people together and add it to our map.
Download and share our expert resources, toolkits, workshops and more to grow your understanding of loneliness and help raise awareness.
Each June, millions of people from every part of society take part in Loneliness Awareness Week across the UK and globally. This year, join individuals, businesses, schools, charities, governments and public figures to raise awareness and empower everyone to find new connections.
Together, let's make Loneliness Awareness Week 2024 our biggest yet!
What is Loneliness Awareness Week?
Loneliness Awareness Week is a week dedicated to raising awareness of loneliness. It's all about creating supportive communities by having open, honest conversations. Loneliness is a natural human emotion - we are hardwired to need social connections. By talking about it, we can support ourselves and others.
The campaign centres on a powerful message which resonates with many. We've trended on Twitter, reached 271.5 million people in one week with the campaign, and each year we've seen tens of thousands of organisations, charities and individuals get involved, including the Royal Family, the Prime Minister, Major of London, NHS trusts, and all Government departments.
Who runs the campaign?
Marmalade Trust is the UK’s leading loneliness charity offering support for all ages and the only charity in the world specifically dedicated to raising awareness of loneliness. We launched Loneliness Awareness Week in 2017 and it grows in momentum each year across the UK and internationally.
What can the campaign achieve?
Loneliness Awareness Week is vital in increasing awareness and understanding of loneliness and we can create a more connected society.
Whilst we’re seeing an increase in discussion on the subject, stigma remains and some key misconceptions still need to be challenged. Ask anyone to picture a lonely person and most will imagine an older person living on their own. As such, we often rebuke and dismiss feelings of loneliness because ‘that doesn’t apply to me’.
By identifying and acknowledging all the times that we have personally felt and experienced loneliness, we can start to change our viewpoint, accept it and understand how to take action to manage the feeling (and our social connections) in the future.
What sort of things happen during the week?
So much happens during Loneliness Awareness Week, the only limit is imagination! From coffee mornings and book clubs to walking clubs and art workshops, to neighbourhood bake sales and speed friending.
There are designated chatty tables in cafes and pubs, businesses putting loneliness on their meeting agenda, radio stations having honest and open conversations about loneliness, laughter yoga, swing dancing, shared office lunches and cook-offs.
Thousands of pounds have been raised in the last seven years during Loneliness Awareness Week and thousands of people have connected to share stories and conversations that reduce stigma and raise awareness.
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