Driving with the brakes on
I’m a West London girl. Brought up in Fulham with a five minute walk to the River Thames and the towpath to Bishops Park which became my playground as a child. It wasn’t until my early twenties that my partner and I at the time, (now husband), wanted to buy a place together that we moved North of the river. We settled on Chingford. The draw was the incredible Epping Forest on our doorstep, the vibrant High Streets and markets in the local area (Walthamstow still a massive attraction as Europe’s longest outdoor market) and the fact we could still be in central London within 40 minutes.
I’ve been an active member of the community over the last 20 years. Supporting local events and independents, keeping up to date with developments, and helping to run my local Scout Group in a number of different roles from an occasional helper to now, an Assistant Scout Leader. Our community work has seen us support the elderly by making friends in care homes, raising funds for our local church, working with a homeless charity giving out food and clothes during the winter and more recently taking donations to local food banks.
But it has only been over the last few weeks that I’ve truly appreciated just how brilliant the Borough of Waltham Forest is. Aside from its space (one of the greenest boroughs North of the river), diversity (*62% of residents are from minority ethnic backgrounds) and culture (home to Britain's most exciting designer William Morris and Borough of Culture 2019), it is its people working to connect the community that shines through the most.
I was recently commissioned by a Charitable Trust and St James Street Big Local, to work on a research project looking at the Digital support needs of small Charities and Community Interest Companies (CICs) across the borough during and post Covid-19.
The context to this, following a decade of council and social sector funding cuts many third sector organisations have emerged to fill the gap in addressing social advantage, particularly for children (**almost 36% of Waltham Forest’s children live in poverty after housing costs). This level was already rising before the pandemic and is now only likely to dramatically increase placing immense strain on already stretched resources providing such valuable support.
I have interviewed around 30 organisations across social sectors - young people, mental health, gangs, domestic violence - (and many more will be involved in the research), with a focus on how much, if any, service provision they have been able to transition online since Covid-19 forced us into lockdown. Their mission of course, has always been to reach those most vulnerable but the pandemic compounded the need for an emergency response to connect with those most isolated from a new, unknown and largely unwelcome reality of social distance.
The findings are of course vital to the final report - ultimately, we’re hopeful of building a case for core funding to support future digital roadmap plans. But the essence of this message is that I have been genuinely blown away by the positivity, passion, commitment, and creativity from each and every representative of these organisations - from CEOs and Directors to Community Managers and Volunteers - during the most challenging time in their history.
There has been a very loud and powerful collective, ‘we can’ message. They have never faltered with a dialogue suggesting that they just ‘couldn’t’ or that it was ‘too difficult’. Despite the very real challenges of the virus, these Charities and CICs have balanced managing their businesses, with the additional wellbeing needs of staff and volunteers, as well as finding new ways to reach their users and offer an alternative programme against a backdrop of reduced resource, time and funding to do so.
Although there has been an unfortunate overall decline in the number of users engaging with the Charities and CICs during Covid-19, in a few cases, the successes have seen increased numbers and new audiences across social media platforms, particularly Youtube and Facebook. Examples include Joy Riders London who have produced a number of interactive cycle route videos supporting key workers on their journeys to work and The Mill on Coppermill Lane Walthamstow and Lloyd Park Children’s Charity who have transitioned online producing some excellent resources. The Blair Academy have just produced a 3 part video series designed to keep older adults active at home during lockdown combatting loneliness through Hip Hop.
And addressing, without doubt, the biggest common challenge all our Charities and CICs faced, The Salaam Peace were quick to devise a Community Response to Covid-19 - supplying a number of tablets and laptops to families who just didn’t have devices at home - as well as providing a wide range of Sports equipment to enable their communities to access the new tutorials, videos and infomercials they produced and launched on YouTube.
There are many more examples of triumph over adversity - a result of the shear hard work and creativity of these incredible organisations who are connecting our community.
A big thank you to everyone who has taken part in the project so far and for your continued work to support our most vulnerable. Your work is more important than ever and we are so very grateful for all that you do.
If you work for or represent a Charity or Community Interest Company within the London Borough of Waltham Forest, and would like to be involved in the research, please complete the survey https://bit.ly/digital-support-needs. A final Research Report will be published at the end of August and available from the Waltham Forest Connected website https://wfconnected.org.
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