[ First published by LBHF Council on 27 May 2021]

Leaders from the three faith communities in White City have pooled their energies and resources to support those struggling in the pandemic as a result of poverty and educational disadvantage.

Supported by grants from the Winter Wellbeing Fund – set up by Hammersmith & Fulham Council and administered by UNITED in Hammersmith & Fulham – the new White City Interfaith Partnership has seen the leaders of the Church of England, Roman Catholic Church and Islamic communities come together.

“If we can work together, we can bring things into the neighbourhood that will lift everybody,” said the Rev Ben Humphries, vicar of the Church of St Michael and St George in White City.

Rather than focus on differences, the partnership’s aim is to show that more unites us as a community than divides.

Uniting those in need

The group has been providing emergency food packages to families for five years, with surplus supermarket food, UNITED funding and H&F Council’s Winter Wellbeing grant securing extra items for the hardest-pressed.

“If families can’t afford to buy food, then they’re not going to buy toothpaste it’s as basic as that,” said Mr Humphries.

Funding has ensured that essentials such as toiletries, cleaning products, sanitary items and food basics have been bought, with a focus on breakfast items to ensure children are not hungry before school. “That ought to make a big difference to what parents give our most vulnerable children,” he added.

Additionally, the partnership received around 70 boxes, each containing enough food to make a week’s worth of half-term lunches, for those on free school meals.

Winter Wellbeing helps 32 local projects

In total, the Winter Wellbeing fund has given £142,836 in grants to 32 different local projects, prompting UNITED executive director Savraj Kaur to thank everyone who has helped.

“Winter is always harder than any other time of year, and that is especially true for families experiencing additional hardship due to the past year’s crises,” she said. “We’re delighted that our young charity could partner with the council to help, and we will use this experience to help others in the coming year too.”

Cllr Sue Fennimore, Deputy Leader of H&F Council, praised the hard work of the individual projects, and the fund administrators. “By helping to channel the grants to grassroots activities it could be used most effectively,” she said. “It’s been fantastic to see so many groups and communities come together to support all of H&F through the pandemic.”

On the left is Church of St Michael and St George and on the right is an outing to Kew Gardens for some of the families involved with the Shepherds Bush Families Project

Community response

Others to have benefited from the grant programme include Dad’s House – a Fulham-based community charity that has worked in partnership with Solidarity Sports to supply food to those who need it and assist children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“A lot of the families did lose jobs, and through losing jobs, there was, unfortunately, a lot of family breakdown going along, side-by-side,” said Billy McGranaghan from the charity. A £5,000 grant covered the cost of winter bills for struggling families, including single dads. “UNITED and H&F Council’s partnership has been instrumental in helping us,” he said.

Another to benefit has been the Shepherds Bush Families Project. Awarded £9,000 from the Winter Wellbeing fund, it has been busily helping families caught between a lack of housing and high rent charges.

“For those with housing needs, the need has been really bad,” says Tina Mayers from the project. “It’s been really difficult to have three or four children in a one-bedroom flat, not being able to go out more than to do their daily exercise during the pandemic.”

Billy McGranaghan (right) founder of Dad’s House

Photojournalist Cinzia D’Ambrosi and visually impaired campaigner Ramona Williams are among six local residents who have joined UNITED in Hammersmith & Fulham’s new Community Grants Panel which pilots distributing decision making power to local people.

The place-based giving scheme’s first ever community panel will receive full training and go on as a group to make independent decisions to allocate pots of funding which support community initiatives for the next 18-months. Together, they will bring unique insights and represent the needs of people with their experience of diverse communities in the borough.

The full list of successful panellists (in alphabetical order) is below:

• Cinzia D’Ambrosi
• Iashia John
• Louise Jones
• Jeannetta Orton
• Trey Campbell-Simon
• Ramona Williams

All will work part time and be paid the London Living Wage for their training, and for assessing and distributing each round of grants, thanks to funding from City Bridge Trust.

Trey Campbell-Simon of Fulham, and the youngest of all the panellists, said:

“It fills me with immense pride to know that through this role I will be able to give back even more to the borough that has given so much me.”

Savraj Kaur, Executive Director of UNITED said:

“This panel is a vital step in helping us continue our mission to help make Hammersmith & Fulham an even better place to work, live and play. We are lucky to have these six incredible residents in our first cohort, who will no doubt bring great energy, independent thinking, and challenge and assure our grant making ways.”

A further announcement about applications for the first round of funding will proceed in the Summer months.

You can read more about each panel member at the link here.

[First published by LBHF Council on 19 March 2021]

A £10,000 grant to London charity Advance is helping to change attitudes and make Hammersmith & Fulham a safer borough for women.

The grant from the charity UNITED in Hammersmith & Fulham and H&F Council supports the work of an organisation set up in 1998 to campaign for an equal, violence-free world for women who have experienced domestic abuse.

Chief executive Niki Scordi said that Advance already works in partnership with many of the council’s departments, including housing and social care, and – in the last year alone – has assisted 7,000 women and children.

Niki believes that the issue of women’s safety is changing. “H&F is committed to helping, and provides wide-ranging services as well as reaching out to us,” she said, emphasising how the Advance charity had a much wider remit than women’s safety.

We support women

She said Advance works with the police, the court service, housing and social services, providing helplines and advice for people in need of support.

“We support women, children, specific communities with specific needs, female genital mutilation, sexual abuse, stalking, harassment and more,” she said.

While better street lighting and CCTV are all well and good, she added, the solution to the issue of women’s safety goes much deeper.

“Women are also assaulted in broad daylight, and in the home,” she said. “This goes well beyond wearing longer skirts… it’s about men changing their behaviour.”

Tackling violence against women

Cllr Sue Fennimore, Deputy Leader of H&F Council, backs the work of the Advance charity, which was set up in the wake of a 1996 statistic that revealed there were just 10 convictions out of 2,000 reported cases of domestic abuse that year.

“It is vital that we work together with organisations such as Advance to tackle violence against women and girls. It is unacceptable that one in five women will experience some form of sexual abuse in their lifetime, and one in four women will be victims of domestic abuse,” she said, pledging H&F Council’s continued commitment to ending all forms of violence and ensuring that the borough remains a safe place for all.

Demand for support for women experiencing domestic abuse has increased fourfold during the pandemic, with 70% of those seeking help having children.

Financial support

The latest £10,000 grant, building on other financial support which the council has given, will also support women caught up in the criminal justice system or who are at risk of offending.

Savraj Kaur, director of the UNITED charity, said: “In the middle of Women’s History Month, Sarah Everard’s disappearance and murder sent shockwaves through the community, and raised feelings of trauma for many, many women and girls.

“We know there are local women in dangerous circumstances and we hope this £10,000 will help Advance’s all-women staff ensure those who seek urgent safety can access it without delay.”

If you need the support of Advance, you can ring 020 8741 7008, email [email protected] or visit the charity’s website.

[First published by LBHF Council on 27 January 2021]

Ria Moore (pictured) who founded Pedal Back Cycles with her partner Nikky Redford

Refurbished bikes are being offered in a bid to encourage more of us to cycle safely around the borough.

A partnership between a Fulham bike shop and a  local charity is spearheading an ambitious project to make professionally restored bicycles available for free.

Made possible by £10,000 of grant funding, the scheme will focus first on key workers responding to the Covid pandemic, such as care staff and delivery cyclists, as well as those looking for work. But if popular, the ultimate target is to provide more bikes to encourage people of all ages and backgrounds in H&F to cycle and walk safely.

Pedal Back Cycles based at 24 Lillie Road in Fulham and Hammersmith charity UNITED in Hammersmith & Fulham have joined forces to channel cash from a walking and cycling grant programme into boosting cycling in the borough. Local residents in poverty who are referred by a trusted local organisation are eligible to receive the bikes.

Nikky Redford, who founded Pedal Back Cycles with her partner Ria Moore, said: “The grant money will help us turn a dream into reality – upcycling abandoned bikes and donating them to those most in need.

“The global Covid-19 pandemic has shown us that enabling people and communities to cycle is more important than ever, and the benefits are not just physical – cycling and access to bikes is mentally and socially transformative.

“We’ve always believed in making cycling as accessible as possible by being open, honest, approachable and fun.”

How it works

Local community groups can refer local adults to join a waiting list to receive a suitable bike when it becomes available as part of the reuse scheme.

When a match is found between budding cyclist and bike, they will be given free training to smoothly get back on the roads and will be invited to join a supportive cycling community.

The scheme has been welcomed by Cllr Wesley Harcourt, H&F Cabinet Member for the Environment. “This is an impressive example of collaboration between a charity and a cycle shop to increase cycling in the borough by first targeting the help to those who need it most,” he said.

The partnership is keen to get referrals to represent the borough’s diversity.

The grant aid of up to £10,000 over three years comes from TfL and the London Marathon Charitable Trust, via environmental regeneration charity Groundwork London. Find out more on the United in H&F website.

Savraj Kaur, Executive Director of UNITED in Hammersmith & Fulham, said: “We thank Transport for London and the London Marathon Charitable Trust for the opportunity to reach those who really need a bike, but might not otherwise be able to afford one.”

[First published by LBHF Council on 22 January 2021]

Fifty local residents most at risk have received emergency food parcels as a result of a Hammersmith & Fulham charity fund.

Home deliveries coordinated by the River House Trust have been made to older people in the borough who are living with HIV.

It is one of a number of frontline groups being supported by the Winter Covid Fund that was launched in November by UNITED in H&F and Hammersmith & Fulham Council. It has now channelled £22,000 to community projects, including £4,000 given out this week in the first distribution of 2021.

The fund is entirely made up of donations from local people, firms, trusts and foundations, to assist those who would otherwise fall through the safety net.

Cllr Sue Fennimore, Deputy Leader of H&F Council, praised those whose kindness had made the Winter Covid Fund’s work possible. “It is thanks to those who give money to support others that the fund is able to provide immediate assistance,” she said. “Without donors’ generosity we would not have this vital lifeline.”

Huge difference

Chris Woolls, director of the River House Trust which is based beside Furnivall Gardens in Hammersmith, said that the fund had made a huge difference already. “Our ability to arrive each week with a food parcel means the world to isolated members,” he said.

“Some feel so alone and afraid – it’s bringing back terrible memories of how they felt when they were first diagnosed with HIV.”

Chris, who served on the government’s independent advisory group for sexual health and HIV and chaired the Central West London Sexual Health and HIV Forum, said that the charity had had to rapidly remodel its services to meet urgent needs, supplying food parcels to those isolating.

“Please don’t think this is over when social distancing starts to be relaxed and some people get a semblance of their old lives back,” he said, stressing the need for continuing support.

“This isn’t going to happen immediately for older people with HIV, so please keep supporting initiatives like UNITED in H&F. We need you!”

Anyone can still donate to the Winter Covid Appeal.

The fund’s latest awards have been made to:

Hammersmith and Fulham Mencap – £1,000
To make welfare calls and liaise with social services to support adults with learning disabilities

Global Action for Autism – £988
To provide art therapy at home for people with autism

Lucas Ark – £1,000
To provide vital phone top-ups to victims of domestic abuse in Fulham

River House Trust – £947
To continue to provide weekly contact and food parcels to those people with HIV who are shielding

If you’re a community organisation, you can apply for funding today via UNITED’s website.