In the block, not the twist

I just got home from a 90 minute walk and during the walk I had an idea whose impetus was a yTube video I saw from Second Thought about how Capitalism is at the root of an epidemic of loneliness.

This is not a bazillion idea as it doesn't require bazillions to do it, but unfortunately it requires more than I have.

I would approach the four universities in my city (there are two English ones and two French ones) and have a meeting with a head of social work or whatever equivalent that would be.

I would provide the following plan (in a more formal and succinct manner as compared to this blog post) and then ask for social work students to apply for the position, one for each university for a X month term project (I think it could be six, nine or twelve months, I'm not certain). I would ask the head of social work (or equivalent) to vet the applications, and perhaps even make the choice.

An English and French university student would pair; so there would be two pairs. As a pair they are to pick a neighbourhood and in that neighbourhood:

• Find a location that would accept weekly meetings, it could be a church basement, community hall, part of a restaurant, etc. Any cost associated with getting the location weekly would be absorbed by me
• Prepare a sign that they hang on themselves with something to the effect of 'are you lonely?' and find a busy pedestrian corner in the neighbourhood chosen and at various times of day (depending on the student's schedule) wander on that corner to see who approaches, and direct them, if they are interested, to go to the location picked above on the weekly day/time that has already been arranged, perhaps have business card sized ads that can be handed out that gives the day/time and location
• If the location they have picked is in a church basement or community hall, also advertise this combat-loneliness project in the church or community
•  Attend those weekly meetings such that the students arrive before hand to set up, and stay after to clean up, and the purpose of the meeting is to get groups of four or five strangers to coalesce, have one of them create a WhatsApp group to which they all become members, encourage them to come back each week to this meeting, but also encourage them to communicate with each other beyond the weekly meeting, and to eventually graduate out of the weekly meeting to then meet and be friends with each other on their own
• The social worker students would have to create activities and moderate the weekly meets, explain the ground rules (things like being respectful). They can also eventually ask any of the strangers at the end of the meeting to stick around to help clean-up, and in the future to help set up

The program would be a success if the social worker students do end up creating at least one group of 4 or 5 strangers who are now friends and who have maintained the friendship outside of the weekly meetings. Obviously more than one group would be even better. The social workers can ask one of them to check in two, five and seven months later, or something like that. The social worker students, during the weekly sessions can also give tips that would help to solidify these friend groups, like having a daily WhatsApp check-in, or mention that it takes a non-zero but modicum amount of effort on the part of everyone in this small group to keep the group together. Give examples of free or low cost things the whole group can do together.

I would pay the students a salary for the term of the project and also offer to cover costs of providing food at the weekly meetings. I would expect from the students a monthly report with both a qualitative analysis of how things are going and a quantitative one. At the end of term I would want a full project report that includes things like what went well in terms of stranger recruitment, weekly meetings, friend group creation, their own time management, review of their partner, what didn't go well, and any way that the program could be improved, etc.

The results of the four full project reports would be combined to better prepare the next cohort of students who would do this same project the subsequent year.