In the first of two episodes looking deeper at empowering communities to change the places they live, the Ambition for Ageing team catch up with community workers in local neighbourhoods to discuss what already needs to exist in a place to begin with, what support to build capacity looks like, how inequalities existing in place can impact on building community capacity and more.

We’re joined by Yasmin Holgeth and Julie Bentley, both of whom worked with their local communities as part of Ambition for Ageing to identify, develop, fund and run a huge number of projects, all in the name of reducing social isolation and increasing age-friendliness.

A transcript of this podcast is available at www.ambitionforageing.org.uk/podcast

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Further reading

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· Looking Back Whilst Moving Forward: Ambition for Ageing’s final report and what implications the findings of the programme have for future commissioning

· Julie and Sharon’s conversation about tight knit communities being invisibly socially isolated is further explored in our briefing, What works in tackling social isolation of older people in Bangladeshi Communities, which highlights the importance of working in a culturally sensitive ways with a community’s values to ensure you reach those at higher risk of social isolation within that community.

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Ambition for Ageing is a Greater Manchester-wide cross-sector partnership aimed at creating more age-friendly places and empowering people to live fulfilling lives as they age. Ambition for Ageing is part of Ageing Better, a program set up by the National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK.  Ageing Better aims to develop creative ways for older people to be actively involved in their local communities, helping to combat social isolation and loneliness. Ambition for Ageing is led by Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation, the voluntary community and social enterprise sector support and development organisation covering the Greater Manchester city region. The theme tune for this podcast is Air by Iliya Troyanov, and any indents this season are taken from his track Tide. Both are used under a creative commons license from his album Fugue. Thank you for listening to this podcast. For more information about Ambition for Ageing and the work we do, visit ambitionforageing.org.uk.