How To Be Hope Hopeful- Season 1- Episode 11- "Finding The Golden Moments"

How To Be Hopeful Season 1 Episode 11  “Finding the Golden Moments”

Welcome to my podcast about hope. This week I speak with Denis Kane, who is project manager at Penfold Community Hub in West London.  Penfold is a residential unit primarily for older people with long term health conditions such as dementia and Parkinson’s. The wider community is invited in to the hub to take part in the wide range of activities that take place there, including gardening, Zumba, sewing, art, cooking, choir and theatre to name a few!

Denis talks beautifully about the tremendous value of community and how it gives him hope “I see hope all over the place, particularly in my work… working with amazing people and amazing projects. I have found tremendous hope in how resilient people have been. I slightly lose hope when I think about politics,  but I don’t when I remember projects like ours…. the simple things that can have an impact on people who are on the edge, engaging them, that gives me hope… reaching the quiet person at the back of the room who lacks confidence… this gives me hope too”

He also speaks about how all of us in the simplest of ways can engage positively with our communities and the hope to be found in small everyday actions: “It doesn’t need an emergency for us to come together as a community and take care of those who need it… contributing to your community is stopping in the street to have a chat "

Penfold Community hub is a charity and part of Notting Hill Genesis, a housing association which works to provide decent and affordable homes for lower-income households. 

You can find them here: https://www.nhg.org.uk/communities/penfold-community-hub/

You can see some beautiful images of projects Penfold created in collaboration with the Royal Albert Hall here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/76734716@N08/albums/72157709571759316

And here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/76734716@N08/albums/72157709532024177

And a trailer of one of the projects here: https://www.royalalberthall.com/about-the-hall/news/2018/july/open-stages-programme-brings-together-two-communities-for-a-unique-performance-in-the-elgar-room/

More soon!

Love Bernadette

My book "How To Be Hopeful" published by Elliot and Thompson is due out September 2020. This podcast series is a chance for me to chat again to some of the people who I interviewed for the book, as well as some people who I didn't have the chance to. I hope you enjoy it. 

You can find me here www.bernadetterussell.com

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