Social distancing and stay-at-home measures around the globe have been necessary to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. Yet these measures have led to increased rates of loneliness and depression as people continue to physically distance from each other.
More than 30 per cent of the world’s population now faces restrictions related to COVID-19. The impact on mental health has rapidly become apparent. According to one recent study, levels of depression in Canada have more than doubled in the past few weeks, rising to 16 per cent from seven per cent.
The scope of mental health challenges continues to mount, but the underlying problem has been brewing for a long time. Over the past decades, increased globalization and online interactions have disconnected us from our local communities.
We now order food and products on Amazon and they conveniently and anonymously arrive at our door. Without the face-to-face contact with the people behind our products, we lose out on human connection.
Our team’s in-depth research offers one antidote to the loss of human connection. For seven years, we studied Shorefast, a registered Canadian charity aiming to revitalize Fogo Island, a community of 2,500 people off the northeast coast of Newfoundland.
Like other fishing communities, Fogo Island was hard hit by the collapse of its primary industry, the cod fishery. In 1992, the Canadian government imposed a moratorium on cod fishing, causing people to lose their livelihoods and flee their communities in search of work in urban centres.
In 2006, Shorefast set out to rebuild Fogo Island and restore its local economy by developing a number of social enterprises, including the award-winning Fogo Island Inn, a 29-bedroom inn designed to honour the place.
Drawing on a deep culture of hospitality, the inn hires local residents to offer guests personal tours of the island, connecting them to its culture and history.
Local artisans made the quilts that adorn all the beds as well as the wooden furniture found throughout the inn. These products are sold at the Fogo Island Shop, another of Shorefast’s social enterprises. These businesses, whose surpluses are reinvested into the community, have created new economic opportunities while also fostering deeper human connections.
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