The idea
During our COVID-19 response program, we have learned that there are plenty of Eastern Europeans living in Worcestershire that have a great drive to help and support other people, and would love to connect to general public in order to be a part of something bigger.
We are aiming to transform an old warehouse into a Community Hub, which will have three main activities:
1) a Community Restaurant, that will be cooking Eastern European food for people that are going through hardship in life. Our aim is not only to offer them a warm meal, but also a friendly ear and mental support necessary to recover.
2) a Social Support Area, where interpreters and specialists will be helping migrants with thing such as legal advice, housing, immigration advice etc. This is needed because people often do not have access to these services due to language barrier.
3) Cultural events, offering access to European dances, arts, musical classes, language lessons etc to the public.
What we'll deliver
- over 1800 warm meals oferred
- Over 40 volunteers actively supporting the community
- Expand the social support area
- Helping at least 1200 migrants with job seeking, settled status and other legal and civic struggles.
- Upgrade the building to be more eco-friendly
- Over 20 free of charge cultural events offered to the public
Why it's a great idea
The key point of our Community Centre is to build new relationships and bring people closer together by making them realize that we all have a lot in common, and by offering help to each other, with no regard where does anyone come from.
The reality we live in is not very favorable for European migrants, and there is more than 3000 of them living in Worcester, with more than 25000 living in Worcestershire. Even without the pandemic, the feeling of exclusion was really serious for our people, so we want to provide them with a safe platform to connect to other people, charities and events that will allow them to really feel connected to our new home of choice.
On the other hand, we feel like we have a lot to give to general public in terms of knowledge, culture and history - for majority of people we talk to, Eastern Europe is Terra Incognita, and everyone would love to know more about it. It will not be an easy bridge to build, but certainly a needed one.
Steps to get it done
- Opening the community restaurant
- Opening the social support centre - small size
- Expanding the social support centre
- Launching the event area
- Opening the summer garden
- Delivering 1000 free meals to people
- Delivering 2000 free meals to people
- Helping 100 people in the support hub
- Helping 500 people in the support hub
- Organizing the first cultural event
- Organizing the 10th cultural event
- Organizing the 20th cultural event
We are doing our best to make that building as much socially orientated as possible, but we also want it to be self - sustainable, to make sure that the good work will continue once we open it and we can deliver good value for money.
Things we do to make sure that our finances are stable are:
We have a solid Fundraising Strategy, with two Fundraisers working as hard as they can.
We are setting up a charitable lottery.
We are offering services to businesses, such as translation, language lessons and cultural barriers training.
We are implementing membership cards for the Hub, aiming at 300 people being members at the level of £10 per month.
Out of the £40k needed to open the place, we have successfully managed to gather £10k already.
And, because we are a CIO, each pound we have gathered will go towards our charitable aim, which is to make people understand that it doesnt matter how someone looks or where do they come from, they are, in most aspects, just Like U.
