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🥵Very hot, with highs around 95 and overnight lows in the 70s. Sunset is at 8:23 p.m.
These smiling faces belong to Ellen Duncan, left, and Musabwase Mugemana, who met through a program run by the nonprofit FriendshipWorks to reduce elder isolation. Over the last few years, I’ve seen a lot of news stories about social isolation and the ways it can affect our physical and mental health, as well as the ways in which we see the world.There are things we can do to keep isolation away: connecting with others, spending time together, making a little small talk to gradually build meaningful connections. I was excited to see my GBH coworker Meghan Smith reporting about some people who are actively working to combat social isolation. You can read more about that below — right after a bit of news.
Four Things to Know
1. Harvard’s Graduate School of Education laid off its chief diversity officer and reassigned his staff to roles in human resources and student affairs. Jarrod Chin had been on the job for a little less than two years.
Harvard’s administrators did not respond to a request for comment, but sources told GBH News’ Kirk Carpezza that the university is calling the move a “redistribution of resources.”
2. Every vote counts: after a recount, the race for state representative for a seat representing parts of Easton and Taunton came down to just 15 votes. Labor activist Lisa Field, a Democrat, is declaring victory over Taunton City Councilor Larry Quintal, a Republican.
In a message to voters, Field wrote: “Here’s one thing you can always count on me to do: represent every person in this district — whether you’re a resident of Easton or Taunton, whether you supported me or didn’t. I know that we can accomplish so much together.”
3. A small factory in Andover is using both human workers and robots to build a modular home in about a month. The homes leave the factory in pieces and can be put together at their new sites in about three days. Two modular triple-deckers are headed to Somerville this fall. GBH’s Alexi Cohan got a tour of the factory, called Reframe Systems.
“We believe it’s an information problem, where we can actually use technology to reduce the time it takes to design the right kinds of buildings,” CEO and co-founder Vikas Enti said.
4. Regie Gibson, the first poet laureate of Massachusetts, says his job is “starting poetry fires all over the place…the kind we hope you can’t put out.” He’s drawing particular inspiration from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, which he first read as a teenager, reflecting on what it means today to step away from societal responsibilities.
“For me, poetry is about civic engagement. I think that a poet laureate’s responsibility is to engage civically with people, and to call us back to, as Lincoln would say, the better angels of our nature,” Gibson said, quoting from President Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address.
Social isolation is a major health risk for older adults. Groups across Mass. are stepping up.
When researchers working on UMass Boston’s recent Healthy Aging Data talked to older adults around the state about what matters most to them, they noticed one concern popping up over and over again: people wanted to connect more with family, with friends and even with strangers who might become new friends.
“We heard a lot about third spaces and wanting to connect, as well as the idea of meeting new people,” said Caitlin Coyle, director of the Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging at UMass Boston’s Gerontology Institute. “It’s about having more of these informal…meetups and dinners and just places to be in community with other people.”
GBH’s Meghan Smith spoke with people across the state who are fighting social isolation by creating places to go and things to do — hosting online gatherings and forging friendships.
Among them are:
-The Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers in Cambridge, which hosts bingo, dominos and dance classes for older adults, most of whom come from Portugal, Brazil or Cape Verde. “They feel lonely and they don’t do anything once they are home, you know. just watching TV, lying down. And here? No,” said Elen Freitas, the center’s coordinator. “They [are] obligated to have a social life, talk to others [who are] having the same kind of experience.”
-OUTstanding Life, which hosts virtual classes and gatherings on Zoom for LGBTQ+ older adults. “A lot of us don’t feel comfortable going to the local town senior center because we don’t know what kind of reception they’re going to get,” founder David Aronstein said. The gatherings have been a bright spot for Carla Morrisey, a trans woman living in Worcester. “They’re so supportive, they’re so friendly,” she said. “It was great because…I haven’t found many supports for older trans folks.”
-FriendshipWorks, a Boston-based organization with a friendly visitor program that assigns volunteers to meet and hang out with older adults. That’s how Musabwase Mugemana and Ellen Duncan became friends. “When you’re isolated, it makes you more depressed. You [are] cut off, I mean, you die; it’s a slow death,” said Musabwase, who lives in Roslindale. Together, she and Duncan paint with watercolors, clean out their closets or go grocery shopping together. “I really needed it, it’s like life-saving for me.”
Read Meghan Smith’s full reporting here.
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