The underused Young Adults Centre in Southall is a building that is managed by Ealing Council and is supposed to operate as a place where young people can come for fun, educational and health activities. But, the site is not well known or used and with recent staffing and funding changes has become even more remote from the local community. Southall Community Alliance is a local charity that has many years experience of working with Southall's diverse communities and delivering community engagement projects. To the rear of this building is unused land and we propose building a new community facility there, that will be an Innovation Centre. This will re-energise the area and help integrate the youth facilities with the wider local community. This one storey building will have office space, meeting room and hot desks that will be available for adults who will be able to learn English, new creative and digital skills and help them gain new qualifications and access local services.

What we'll deliver:

• build one storey Innovation Centre
• Clear derelict land

Why it's a great idea:

Southall has a growing and very diverse local community, in some wards over 90% of residents are from BME backgrounds. Our Innovation Centre will help these residents from Indian, Somali, Afghan, Tamil etc backgrounds meet and interact with each other, attend courses that improve their communication skills and instil in them the confidence to take up further education or employment. Our project will create an exciting new facility in an area that has been losing community centres and social facilities over the past few years. It will benefit adults, from ethnic minority communities, many of whom will be relatively new to the UK and help them gain new skills and experience that can help them make positive changes within their own lives. There is no place like this in Southall and residents frequently ask for opportunities to gain new skills in community settings and the Innovation Centre will provide this.

Steps to get it done:

• refurbish Centre with office resources
• clear unused lands for development
• commission building works to commence
• obtain legal consents and complete structural checks
• official launch of Innovation Centre

Southall has some of Ealing's highest levels of overall deprivation and poverty and many of the beneficiaries of this project will be women and older people, who face such disadvantages. We hope that the Innovation Centre will enable many of these users to start to overcome the poverty that holds them from achieving their true potential.