The Al-Ghazali Centre is a community centre that responds to the needs of the diverse local community through the delivery and provision of social, educational and health programmes and activities. The centre stands as a resource for the community that develops children’s, young people’s and adults social and learning abilities within a safe environment and increases community participation and improves quality of life throughout the community. Over the past 29 years the centre has grown and expanded, starting with a small group of young people and delivering social activities in various buildings around the city to currently owning our own building in heart of the community and opening our doors to over 600 people per week.
Over the years we have gained great experience in delivering projects to the community that promote inclusion and cohesion.
The Al-Ghazali Youth club runs a variety of weekly sessions in and out of the centre for juniors and young people from the age of 8-12years and young people from 13-19years. It has been able to play an important part in contributing to reducing and discouraging youth crime and antisocial behaviour. Our activities are very popular and have attracted over 200 members.
The Education Project delivers a variety of educational activities for children, young people and adults in order to increase learning abilities, educational attainment, life chances and employability.
The Health Project seeks to actively raise awareness and promote healthy life style and increase people’s involvement in healthy activities and improve well-being.
The supplementary school delivers an Arabic language and cultural programme to children from the age of 5 to 17years, empowering them to develop their skills and confidence to engage and contribute actively in the community.
The Cultural project seeks to unite people from different cultural backgrounds to developing their skills and confidence. This project also provides information services, advocacy, signposting, completing forms, allotment club for elders, interfaith dialogue and community engagement events.
We needed to create more space and improve the condition of our building in order to deliver and meet demand. We were able to double the size of our Youth Club area in the basement of our building and now need to continue with some of finishing work (plastering and flooring) to reopen the area.