Do you like the idea of a ‘supermarket’ of social, lifestyle and healthy-living information? Then, welcome to Living It Up!
From history to hill-walking, dancing to gardening, reading to volunteering, Living It Up can help you find an activity or event. Support for carers? Advice on health conditions, care, equipment and research? Living it Up covers that too. And it encourages real people, with real stories to share their personal experiences and learning.
Claire*, aged 59, has lived with MS for a number of years and often felt quite isolated on the days she couldn’t leave the house. She used Living It Up to find a reading group, an MS support group, and she learned how to install and use Skype. On the other hand, John (71) recently retired, was frustrated that his years of financial skill were going to waste. Through Living It Up, he found a volunteering opportunity to help those in debt. Henry and Jane, he in his sixties and she in her late eighties, met through an interest in community gardening – and have developed a firm friendship based on the mutual love as cinema as well.
When you want to find out about a new class, group or service in your locality, or if you, a friend or relative has questions about their health and well-being, it’s often hard to know where to start looking for information and advice. The Living It Up project is here to tackle that exact dilemma. It’s aimed primarily at the over fifties, and – perhaps surprisingly – it’s on online service.
Too often we think of social media as the property of the teens and twenty-somethings, but there’s no doubt that many of us in our middle (and later) years are increasingly techno-savvy. This is something of which the funders of Living It Up – Scottish Government, Technology Strategy Board and Highlands and Islands Enterprise – are well aware. Even for those not quite so confident, it’s as easy as reading Lothian Life…
If you can access the Internet and look up https://portal.livingitup.org.uk you’re there!
There are four dimensions to Living It Up:
SHINE - A service to help you uncover your skills, interests and sometimes forgotten hidden talents! Search for     opportunities to learn and get more active in your community, including volunteering options.
DISCOVER -Â Allows you to search for what activities, groups and events are available locally.
CONNECT -Â Provides information on how to get in touch with like-minded others using technology. It has videos and guides on how to use everything from email to digital photography and Skype.
FLOURISH -Â A set of interactive tools that help you to stay healthy, happy and safe.
Living It Up is free; all you do is sign up to access the information and have your say and, if you wish, share you own ideas and opinions. You don’t need any particular knowledge to start, but by the end you’ll have learned a lot!
‘Everyone can benefit form a little more know-how’
For more information about the Living it Up project please visit Livingitup.org.uk or email hello@livingitup.org.uk
Living It Up is being tested across the Lothians (and Forth Valley, Highland, Western Isles and Moray) by NHS Scotland
* Names have been changed