We’re Asking You Each Lunch Time To Shout ‘Hello’ To Your Neighbours!

If you live in Southampton or any other city, town or village nationwide, we’re asking you each lunchtime at 12noon from April 6 to open your windows and shout ‘hello’ to your neighbours.

As a charity, helping the isolated and lonely, we want to raise awareness of those who were already isolated before the Coronavirus outbreak and are now staying at home.

Our Manager, Annie Clewlow says: “These people are unable, understandably, to access the lunch clubs and activities we would normally run, which are now closed, and we want them all to stay safely at home. But we know they will still need our support. We want to encourage people to reach out, metaphorically, to those they live near.

“We’re launching the hashtag #Cooee and asking people through our social media channels to shout this, or any form of friendly greeting, from an open window or over the garden fence, wall or hedge at a safe social distance to their next door neighbours.

“Even if they can’t see them or their windows aren’t open, we hope enough people will do this at 12noon nationwide, every day, to help those who are housebound at the moment realise they are not alone.

“We want other cities, towns and villages nationwide to follow suit and to get this hashtag trending on social media, as more and more of us find ourselves at home for longer periods of time.

“It’s a great fun thing for children to do too and we’d love to see people’s videos of themselves shouting ‘cooeee’ out of their windows. Hopefully this will help release some happy endorphins, in what is a very stressful time for us all, and for people to realise they are not alone.”