Last year we worked with Action Funder to launch the EC BID Community Fund of £10,000 giving grants to community-led and charitable organisations in our local area.
The criteria was to support initiatives that allow the local area to flourish and nurture a greater social purpose. This reflects our priorities to make the Eastern City area ever evolving and diverse, sustainable and a place for collective action and community empowerment.
The below organisations were successful in their applications and were awarded funds:
- XLP’s Employability programme aims to get young people aged 16 – 24 into education, training or employment. Young people will be engaged in an intensive 6-8 week course, consisting of workshops, 1-2-1 sessions, work experience, volunteering, and job application and interview support.
- The Wrong Trousers provide vulnerable men looking for employment the opportunity to spend an hour with a volunteer professional stylist and provides them with a suit, smart shirt, tie and other accessories for job interviews.
- Forget me not: Carbon Smart London will set up a series of workshops to teach the local community about climate change is affecting urban areas and how they can be more sustainable. They will learn about topics such as recycling, upcycling, reducing household rubbish and food wastage in a structure and sociable way.
- Accumulate’s Confidence Through Creativity (CTC) project will use creative workshops to reverse the negative experiences and impacts of people who are homeless, targeting those living in hostels within a 10 mile radius of EC1N 8BA.
Update from XLP’s Ready To Work Project – Kier Wilson
XLP is about creating positive futures for young people growing up on inner-city communities in London. The young people we work with may struggle daily with issues such as family breakdown, unemployment and educational failure, and living in areas that experience high levels of anti-social behaviour and gang violence.
Every year we help 4,000 young people recognise their full potential. We believe positive, long-term relationships can restore a young person’s trust in people, nurture the belief that things can change, encourage them to set positive goals, and work hard to achieve them.
We believe in building these relationships with young people, and creating multiple contexts and opportunities to deepen our engagement with them. Our theory of change is centred on such relationships. Regular and consistent engagement is not only shown to be the most effective strategy in long term change, but also necessary for young people with multiple levels of disadvantage.
Ready to Work Project
We work alongside corporate partners to give structured sessions on CV writing and interview techniques, as well as providing options to get suitable experience and qualifications relevant to a young person’s field of interest. Young people are also offered work experience through these partnerships, and are encouraged to volunteer on XLP projects.
Your organisation can get involved in XLP’s work in a variety of ways. Thanks to our location in the heart of London, many of our partners choose to get fully immersed in our work by helping on one of our community fun days, but there are many ways to contribute!
Whether you’re looking to volunteer, set up a partnership or you just want to find out a little bit more, we’d love to hear from you keir.wilson@xlp.org.uk
Update from Accumulate’s Confidence Through Creativity project
Another one of the awarded projects was Accumulate’s Confidence Through Creativity (CTC) project which used creative workshops to reverse the negative experiences and impacts of people who are homeless, targeting those living in hostels within a 10 mile radius of the EC footprint.
These workshops were “Drawing and Colour” workshops and 16 participants attended. Over 4 workshops the participants were involved with drawing and advancing their skills, they built on their confidence and self value and purpose through their participation in the activity itself plus group communication and collaboration.
They worked together on shared drawings and needed to work as a team in order to build a 3d drawing. In the 3rd week of the course the session ended with a mindfulness session.
