Hello. This is 6 Minute
English from BBC Learning English.
I'm Neil and I'm Beth.
What's up Beth? You look a little sad.
Well, recently, I've been spending lots of time with my cat and house plants,
if you know what I mean. I'm feeling a bit lonely.
It might help to know that you're not the only one feeling lonely.
Loneliness has been called the 'modern epidemic'.
Although millions of us live together in towns and cities,
more and more people report feeling lonely and unconnected to those
they live close to.
Loneliness can affect anyone.
And while everyone's experience of loneliness is different,
its effects can be serious. Research has shown that loneliness puts people
at greater risk of many health issues,
including dementia and heart disease.
So, how can loneliness, be fixed? In this programme,
we'll be hearing about one project in the Netherlands, aiming to do just that.
And as usual,
we will be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.
But first, I have a question for you, Beth. Here in the UK,
an organisation called the 'Campaign to End Loneliness'
has been offering advice and support since 2011.
So, according to the Campaign,
what proportion of British adults report feeling lonely at least some
of the time? Is it a) 29%, b) 39% or c) 49%
I will guess it's 39%.
OK, Beth, I'll reveal the answer later in the programme.
Feeling lonely is not necessarily the same as being alone.
Some people can happily spend lots of time on their own,
while others may be surrounded by people, but still feel disconnected.
So, what do we mean, when we say we feel lonely.
Here's Myra Anubi, presenter of BBC
World Service Programme,
'People Fixing The World',
explaining what loneliness means for her:
It's a feeling when you crave people's company and you find it hard to connect
or maybe you just feel left out with no one to turn to. Now, feeling lonely
isn't just uncomfortable, when it's experienced over time,
it's been associated with health issues like a higher risk
of having depression, dementia, or even heart disease.
When we're lonely,
we crave people's company.
We want their company a lot.
We might also feel left out
- unhappy because we are not included in what others are doing.
And maybe we have no one to turn to - no-one we can go to
and ask for support and help. Someone who suffered all these feelings
was Bep de Bruin. In 2013,
Bep, aged 74, was found dead
at her home in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Her death wasn't suspicious,
but it shocked the whole country, because it turned out
she'd been dead for ten years!
Bep had lost contact with her only child and kept to herself
in her apartment when she died sometime in 2003, no-one realised.
Bep's tragic story inspired a national campaign to combat loneliness
including one project called 'Oma's Soup', a kitchen
bringing lonely elderly people together with schoolchildren
and students to make soup.
'Oma' means 'grandma' in Dutch,
and the project encourages young people to spend time
with their grandparents' generation.
Here, Claire Bates, reporter for BBC
World Service Programme,
People Fixing The World, explains, how the project got started:
It's run by two young guys called Max Kranendijk and Martijn Canters.
And they were concerned
their grandparents' generation were becoming isolated and lonely.
And meanwhile they had lots of student friends who had free time,
so they thought why not try to bring these two generations
together through making soup.
Oma's Soup was started by Max and Martijn two local guys, or men.
They wanted to involve their student friends
because they had lots of free time,
time when they do not have to work or study and can do what they want.
Max and Martijn found the perfect way to help elderly people who felt lonely
by bringing them together with students.
If you bring someone together,
you help people or groups to become friendly or to do something together,
especially something they wouldn't usually do... like make soup.
'Oma's Soup' has been a big success and spread to other cities
across the Netherlands,
including Rotterdam, the hometown of Bep de Bruin, making her tragic death
the spark for something much more hopeful.
I think it's time to reveal the answer to your question, Neil.
Right, I asked you what proportion of British adults report feeling lonely
at least some of the time. And I said it was 39%.
Which was... the wrong answer, I'm afraid,
Beth. Sadly, the correct answer is even higher
- 49% of adults,
that's around 26 million people in the UK,
making it even more important to reach out and connect with others.
OK, it's time to recap the vocabulary
we've learned in this programme, starting with the verb 'crave',
to have a strong wish or desire for something.
If you feel left out, you're unhappy because you've been excluded from something.
To turn to someone means to go to someone and ask them for help
or support. A guy is an informal way of saying a man.
Free time, also called leisure time, is time when you do not have to work or study
and can do what you want.
And finally, the phrasal verb 'to bring someone together'
means to help people or groups become friendly or do something together,
especially if they usually don't.
Once again, our six minutes are up.
But if you're feeling lonely,
remember you're not alone.
So reach out by joining us again next time here at 6 Minute
English. Goodbye for now. Bye.
Bye