HOPE AMPLIFIED 

We need to fund the cost of essential food, groceries, and SIM cards for mobile phones to ensure vulnerable households remain connected and receive essential health awareness updates.

Preserving & showcasing the stories of Nigerian Civil War

towards the costs associated in delivering activities in your local community.

towards the financial inclusion and food project

Detailed description not provided.

Grant to Hope Amplified to support the organisation through COVID19

COVID19 : purchase of refrigerating equipment for a charity that works with disadvantaged minority communities in Glasgow

Detailed description not provided.

Food purchase & volunteer expenses incurred by changing food bank to delivery within largely African community

To contribute towards the costs of volunteer expenses, purchase of food and co-ordination of a free food and essentials distribution service to older people and households on the group?s current ....more

To contribute towards the costs of volunteer expenses, purchase of food and co-ordination of a free food and essentials distribution service to older people and households on the group?s current Fareshare distribution list who are resident in Glasgow, Ren

Our project community was named in a recent report as one of the most deprived community in Scotland. It is the most economically disadvantage community in Scotland and two-thirds of the local ....more

Our project community was named in a recent report as one of the most deprived community in Scotland. It is the most economically disadvantage community in Scotland and two-thirds of the local population live in a data zone among the 15 per cent most deprived neighbourhood in Scotland. The elderly African community are economically disadvantaged due to the welfare reform and the squeeze in UK Government public spending which has taken its toll on Local Council service provision by reducing funds/budget allocated to the elderly. The elderly in our community have nowhere to go and socialise or take part in any project activity as their counterpart from other indigenous population. They practically have nothing to do, but to sit-out in the house 24 hours a day for those who are currently unable to work due to infirmities (various forms of health issues) or have passed their retirement age. Older African community are particularly vulnerable to social isolation or loneliness owing to loss of friends and family, mobility or income. Social isolation and loneliness impact upon individuals' quality of life and well-being, adversely affecting health and increasing the use of health and social care services. The Elderly from the African community (excluded from mainstream activity) who accompanied their Grandchildren to our activities are sometimes left out, unable to participate in any activity as they specifically tailored for young people. Research shows that loneliness and social isolation are harmful to our health: lacking social connections is a comparable risk factor for early death as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and is worse for us than well-known risk factors such as obesity and physical inactivity. Also, research by Voluntary Health Organisation shows that social isolation and poverty are major contributing factors to health inequality in Scotland. A total of 91% of Voluntary Health Organisation taking part in new research for Voluntary Health Scotland said that social isolation was a major issue underpinning health inequality and 71% highlighted poverty as a key issue. From our experience working with young people and their parents shows that having a place to visit, play, relax, meet new people or forget about their worries for a while is vital for the well-being of the participants. The Equal Opportunities Committee, convened by Margaret, published a landmark report on age and social isolation last year, which found evidence that the effects of loneliness in society could be as harmful as smoking. MSPs on the committee called on the Scottish Government to prioritise loneliness and isolation alongside issues such as poverty and poor housing as part of the public health agenda and called for a national social isolation strategy for Scotland. In the last eight (8) months, we received several requests from the elderly population, Parents, young people and volunteers to start a new activity specifically designed for the elderly BME who are increasingly isolated and socially excluded in the communities. We are unable to commence any meaningful activity directed at the elderly population for the lack of organisation capacity. However, early this year, we worked with our older young people to carry out an initial one-off consultation to find out what sort of activities or programme that would meet the need of the adult community. Some of the activities listed were Budgeting, arts & craft, cookery and sewing workshop. This initial consultation is not far reaching enough as they would need to stamp their input in terms of what they want, how long should it be and when would the best time to hold it. The findings from the elderly community will help guide us in our decisions about the suitability of the project activities, what to include and when to hold it. Consequently, we are seeking funding from the Community Resilience and Capacity Fund to enable us trial a new project which will provide sixty (60) isolated and socially excluded African community age 50s and above resident in Glasgow with a variety of activities such as arts & craft, sewing & budgeting and give them the chance to choose the most preferred activities they will like to do going forward. Also, the funding will help increase the capacity of our organisation to handle the elderly project through the training of five volunteers in Safeguarding vulnerable adult, Financial Planning for non-financial managers, Managing & Supervising people and Demonstrating impact and value to funders. Community Inclusion Project seeks to address economic inequality, reduce isolation and loneliness, experienced by older people, and enable them to make a positive lifestyles changes associated with ageing, and ultimately, to bring about a better quality of life for the elderly from the African Communities resident in the target council area. The Community Inclusion Project is an initiative designed to pilot this great new idea so that we can understand and establish how keen the elderly in the African community are to trying activities that are new to them, and to find out which ones they wanted to get involved. The project will focus on three specific activities which came on top during consultation-Arts & Crafts, Sewing and Budgeting. The grant will help pay for two Sessional staffs, Venue hire, Volunteer Expenses, training for 5 volunteers and Community Consultations. The project will focus on three key areas: Piloting and monitoring of the new idea to develop the organisation capacity to meet the demand relating to welfare reform; develop collaboration with carers and other support agencies by developing a new systems to track referrals and progress and aid networking between organisations; develop participant's confidence through budgeting education to prevent themselves from reaching the crisis point. We wanted to reduce the effect of poverty due to welfare reform and isolation for the elderly African community and raise the bar on their aspirations. Coming to a place like ours to participate in an activity they helped to establish will encourage the creation of supportive inter-generational networks that lead to a more cohesive and aware community. By the end of the project activities, the participants will have opportunity to choose through feedback two project activities they feel will improve their mental health and well-being, reduce isolation and improve financial literacy that will help them cope with the welfare reform. ACTIVITIES FRIDAY Activities: Budgeting & Sewing workshop-The activities will run every week for two hours (3.30pm-6.30pm) on Friday for 28 weeks. Budgeting workshop- (budgeting sessions; support with DWP claims; credit check, switching energy suppliers and opening bank accounts, Practical steps to reducing living costs, reducing energy bills by switching providers and being more energy efficient, Shopping about for the best deals). Sewing Workshops- (Sewing patterns and dressmaking patterns-How to make simple curtains, making of cushion covers, bodice a sleeve block pattern and embroidery concept) SATURDAY Activities: Arts & Craft Workshop -The activities will run every week for four hours (3.30pm-6.30pm) on Saturday for 28 weeks. Arts & Craft Workshop- (knitting, crocheting and weaving) SUNDAY Activities: On-going Community Consultation and engagement event (The activities will run once every for two hours (14.30pm-16.30pm) on Saturday for 28 weeks. TRAINING: Five volunteers to attend Safeguarding Vulnerable Adult Training.

purchase of office furniture and refurbishment for a charity which works with disadvantaged minority communities in Glasgow

Towards delivery of the Women's Sewing Project.

The Women sector has been disproportionately affected by the recent cuts in public sector spending, at a time when the issues the sector deals with have never been so prominent. Financial worries are ....more

The Women sector has been disproportionately affected by the recent cuts in public sector spending, at a time when the issues the sector deals with have never been so prominent. Financial worries are common in many households across Scotland, but can be particularly difficult for lone parents, people experiencing unemployment and those on low incomes and mostly households from the Black & Minority Ethnic community. We are seeking funding to pilot a new service in Glasgow & South Lanarkshire that will target mostly women in poverty due to the welfare reforms, and are disengaged from education and are experiencing various social & economic disadvantages to have access to financial education, help them develop their financial skills and to help them raise their educational attainment; and to support them to improve confidence and self-esteem to lead a healthy and meaningful lifestyle. The project will empower them with the necessary financial skills to live independently and to deal effectively with the welfare reforms. The project will offer these women experiencing financial difficulties support and advice in relation to debt and money management including welfare, debt, fuel and energy management. The activities will take a preventative approach to financial problems and improve mental welling for those affected by the current welfare reforms and reduce the social inequalities that they face. The primary purpose of the project is to support women aged 18-50 years from the African community resident in Glasgow & South Lanarkshire in poverty and experiencing financial difficulties exacerbated by the UK Government Welfare reform to money management services. Financial Inclusion is about ensuring everyone has access to appropriate financial services and products which enable them to manage their money on day to day basis; plan and deal effectively with unexpected financial pressures. We will actively involve the women in decision making processes regarding project planning and encourage them to have a genuine influence on how the project is delivered. By doing this we aim to foster important skills and provide opportunities for them to learn more about budgeting and planning considerations. We will also regularly seek out feedback from them and develop creative ways of involving them in evaluating the project and recognising and celebrating successes. Partnership working is at the heart of our project proposal and we strongly feel that developing positive relationships with other organisations and involving them in project delivery results in better projects and additional outcomes for young people. For this project, we will be looking to gain input from a number of partners including the local community CAB agency to help us explore with participants the impact of welfare reform, both individually and societally, and to develop materials and information that creatively engages and informs the women. We are also keen to embrace opportunities to tap into the wider network of organisations receiving Community Capacity and Resilience funding and to explore potential partnership working with them. Having previously delivered work around these themes, we know that our project addresses a significant gap in provision in the locality and that supporting the women to be aspirational and develop their awareness and confidence dealing with issues which contribute to inequality such as health and finance literacy. We strongly believe that actively helping the women to learn new skills at such a key stage in their lives, improves their well-being and reduces their future dependency on family and state supports. Being based in a community which experiences multiple deprivation, we consider ourselves, despite our specific community focus, to be fundamentally an anti-poverty and pro-equality organisation. As such we are committed to creatively supporting women and developing projects which seek to reduce inequalities and decrease the number of people who experience financial hardship and are negatively affected by welfare reform. We know that there is a need for our project because of our previous work and through our interactions with these women who are currently unemployed. When we speak with the women who we meet, often on the streets during the day, about what they are doing many reports that they are currently doing nothing and that they feel that no existing provision meets their needs. The target beneficiaries that we will work with experience a number of disadvantages and complex needs as a result of their age, the area they live in and its social issues and, for many, their negative experiences of mainstream education. We propose to deliver financial educations that will include budgeting sessions; support with DWP claims; credit check, switching energy suppliers and opening bank accounts, Practical steps to reducing living costs, Reducing energy bills by switching providers and being more energy efficient, Shopping about for the best deals in relation other regular bills such as home and car insurance, Making the most of entitlements such as free schools' meals; clothing grants, concessionary travel; Education Maintenance Allowance. Steps taken to maximise family incomes, reduce essential outgoings and mitigate the effects of poverty and whilst there is an upward trend in rates of employment in Scotland, changes to the quality and nature of works have driven in-work poverty. We estimate that 250 women aged 18-50 years from the African community will have access to the project. The project will be delivered on a one to one and group basis depending on the need of individual women.Delivery will be from our Glasgow City centre base (new) and this is easy accessible via good transport links. We expect the delivery to be like: One-to-one support will work with participants to identify issues that they require additional help with and to develop strategies for overcoming barriers and obstacles. One-to-one support will also provide the women with supported access to computers and the internet for writing CV's, Excel sheet for money management, exploring employment, further education and training opportunities and making applications. Each person will have an allocated Mentor who will walk hand in hand with them to improve and assist with their finances and future financial situations. We will provide ranging levels of support dependent on the individual needs and requirement. We will improve a person's current situation with their finances and ensure they have the skills and capacity to be able to continue with positive finances through their lives. A big part of the service is to ensure that those who are socially excluded due to debt will no longer be, we will provide family support if required and volunteers will be trained and peer supporters to carry on with the work. Partnering with local groups through referral to extend the service to hard-to-reached women resident in the target community. NEED FOR THE PILOT PROJECT Research from Chartered Institute of Housing (CIOH), Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), Poverty Alliance as well as the UK and Scottish Government's suggest that the poorest 5th of Scotland's population are disproportionately most likely not to have a basic bank account or access to affordable financial services and far more likely to be in the social housing sector, in receipt of benefits and unemployed than those in the top 80% of incomes and therefore vulnerable to the welfare reform, particularly the introduction of Universal Credit ( claimant online accounts will be an issue among the BME communities as only 21 per cent of the population have some internet access at home. Households experiencing financial exclusion typically exhibit one or more of the following characteristics: A lack of key financial products such as bank account; Insurance; Savings products and the financial services that come with them and a reliance on alternative forms of expensive credit such as doorstep lenders; payday loans and pawnbroker. Based on this information, we set out a consultation together with the women in order to address the issue of financial exclusion and to find ways in which these could be improved in our community. We held three events and a focus group discussion to carry out the consultation and engagement process. We actively encouraged maximum involvement throughout the process to ensure a "bottom-up" approach; this means asking women what they want, how best to deliver it and ensure they are actively involved in the project management. The outcome of the consultation and community engagement shows that women in the community are affected by high level of debts, live in households in fuel poverty, in unemployment, inability to claim benefits. Some of them have accessed loans from the loan shark lenders. The women affirmed that financial inclusiveness will help them with the foundational knowledge to succeed and able to navigate the welfare reforms. The consultation enables us to determine whether there is a need for the project and whether there is any third sector organisation in the area currently running similar projects specifically targeting the BME women so as to avoid duplicity. Women were given the task to discussed and come up with activities capable of making the greatest impact in helping the community financially empowered with the hope of creating life opportunities that will make it possible for them to lead a life free from economic & financial exclusion. The outcome of the consultations: 86% (80 households) of our respondent (93 targeted) had no bank account; 100% (93 households) of our respondents had no form of Insurance; 96% (89 households) are currently in extreme fuel poverty and 71% (66 households) are in one to two months of rent arrears; 95% (88) are living in social housing; 90% (84) are in receipt of one form of benefit and 89% (83) are in unemployment. The majority do not have the skills to understanding UC or are able to access benefits for themselves. The common denominator for these women is that they are all affected and impacted negatively by the welfare reforms. Developing financial understanding is the first step in ensuring the beneficiaries have the skills required to deal confidently with every day financial issues, helping them to make informed decisions and choices. To support the importance of financial literacy,Ofsted, suggested" Providing personal finance education can have a significant and lasting impact on women's future prosperity and help them to successfully navigate the financial markets – from mortgages and pensions,to whom to bank with – when they leave education" Director of Education Ofsted, Ofsted 12th March 2008). Access to financial services is a key barrier to financial inclusion whether it is not being able to open a basic bank account or poor credit histories that deter lenders. Runnymede Trust suggests that many people from the ethnic minority backgrounds have serious money issues and a pressing need for money guidance. Women should have opportunities to acquire financial capability and that "women becoming financially capable is one pre-requisite for their personal and social well-being, for their developing roles as responsible citizens in an increasingly complex world and for success in their future working lives." (ibid, 1999, page 12).

Towards sessional staff costs and venue hire to support delivery of the Kush Women's Sewing Project.

Detailed information not yet available.

This group supports people from ethnic minority backgrounds living in South Lanarkshire and this funding will allow them to deliver a music project for young people in the area.

The project seeks to increase the current "Digital Inclusion Initiative" due to an increase in demand from families and young people of African community resident in Cambuslang, Springhall, ....more

The project seeks to increase the current "Digital Inclusion Initiative" due to an increase in demand from families and young people of African community resident in Cambuslang, Springhall, Whitlawburn and Rutherglen area of South Lanarkshire (It is a regeneration area with a population of 13000 people. It consists of high-rise flats, tenement and back and front door houses. The hub of the area is a rather bleak, windswept shopping mall that also contains a local community services centre (managed through the community service department but not by the community development team. More than half of the local population live in a bottom 15% ranked ' income derived' data zone. Recent statistics shows that the neighbouhood is one of the most deprived in Scotland in terms of opportunity and activities for the youth and the elderly). The initiative started last year as a pilot project and have seen an exponential increase in demand from the community stemming from the Welfare cuts. The Initiative runs two hours(4pm-6pm) only on every Friday with 12 residents in attendance. The remaining 25 residents are unable to attend because we lack the capacity to accommodate the increase numbers. Residents are therefore placed on waiting list for the next six months on a rotational basis. The local council in conjunction with local Charity Organisation like ours piloted a two-week computer literacy and financial awareness for young people to create awareness of the welfare cuts among the most vulnerable population. The outcome of the project sample was very disturbing, more so, for the African (formerly asylum seeker and refugees) communities who are at the bottom of the ladder with respect to financial exclusion and computer literacy. The Pilot project shows that over 81% (37) of the 44-young people from the African communities are unable to use the computer to access or use basic financial services and products such as bank accounts, credit cards or affordable loan, which make it difficult for people to manage their money, cope with financial pressures as a result of the welfare cuts and plan for the future. They suggested that improving financial confidence and computer awareness will help them overcome these issues by giving them the confidence and skills to choose, access and use financial and products online and helped them deal wisely with the welfare cuts. The funding from the Community Capacity & Resilience fund would enable us to hire an additional sessional worker to increase the sessions to 3 (Friday-4-6pm; Saturday-12noon to 3pm; 3.30pm-6.30pm) and the number of hours to 8 hours from the current 2 hours a week. The Digital Inclusion Initiative is both a financial and computer wellness activity geared towards ensuring that everyone's incoming money is maximised; that they have access to appropriate financial services and products which enable them to manage their money on a day to day basis; and they can plan for the future and deal effectively with unexpected financial pressures due to welfare reform. Some of the training workshops includes the following: - financial "cascading training" (Cascade training will seek to recruit 2 volunteers to train as 'Money Mates Ambassador' to share their ideas and tips on making the most of their money. They will also provide free 'money makeovers' -- giving practical and friendly advice on debt, benefits, budgeting, banking, borrowing and saving). -Workshop Trainings on "Numbers & Money" - Understanding money; Getting to grips with money and banking words; spending, saving & borrowing money; money/budgeting advice; and planning for your financial future. It will also include dealing and coping with the welfare reform. -Workshops on "Your Rent & You" - This section will provide African social housing tenants with one-to-one personal support at home to help them manage their money, get on-line and find advice around work, volunteering and training. -Workshops on computer literacy & Numeracy, proficiency and use to beneficiaries over the duration of the project. -Two hours of Christmas Cruise Control (3C) - Christmas is all too often a time of over indulgence and inordinate uncontrollable spending spree that often comes with increased debt that African households will have to face in the New Year. 3C activities will help the community to understand the difference between "wants and needs"; how to avoid "impulse buying" during the festive seasons.

This group provides activities and services to young people in South Lanarkshire and Glasgow in areas of high deprivation, targeting Black and Minority Ethnic communities. The funding will be used to ....more

This group provides activities and services to young people in South Lanarkshire and Glasgow in areas of high deprivation, targeting Black and Minority Ethnic communities. The funding will be used to refurbish their current premises and purchase new kitchen equipment.

Not Available