About Urban Community Projects

www.urbancommunityprojects.org.uk

Urban Community Projects has over 10 years of experience working for and with local people in Camden. We empower them to CREATE, INSPIRE and BUILD new opportunities for each other.

We build stronger communities giving local people the tools to work together to make real changes to the places they live. We work with local communities to alleviate poverty, offering unique solutions to some of the worlds most challenging problems. Through co-design, delivery, empowerment and support we help local people build stronger communities.

Employment and Training: We're partnering with the Somers Town Job Hub team, offering our food bank clients private weekly 1:1 meetings to help the create a new CV, job search, prepare for interviews and help them into PAID work.

Financial Awareness: Our Money Matters course is a programme of financial awareness and education aimed at addressing the lack of financial awareness and consequent financial exclusion experienced by people who live on social housing estates. Our workshops are designed to improve your financial literacy skills and covers basic areas, such as setting up a bank account, credit and savings, how to use credit cards and their pitfalls, budgeting and managing money, applying and managing loans and managing debt.

Food Poverty: We wanted to restore DIGNITY and give food bank users the CONTROL to pick the food they need. A more holistic approach with joined up support services and everything under one roof. We support local people and children in food poverty with meal and lunch boxes and provide PAID roles for local parents to help run our operations through our amazing Camden Mobile Food Bank.

CAMDEN MOBILE FOOD BANK

Camden Mobile Food Bank, along with partners in our community has been helping more families and local people in response to the Coronavirus outbreak. Over the last 12 months we’ve supported 2889 people with 3-5 days worth of food.

Our wonderful volunteers have been making emergency food parcels and responding to online referrals and working with local organisations who deliver emergency services to vulnerable people. Running the emergency food bank throughout COVID-19 was no mean feat and we couldn’t have supported so many people in need, without the wonderful support from local people, volunteers and funders.

It costs £1121 every week to keep the food bank open!

WE’RE MAKING CHANGES TO OUR SERVICE

This month we’re changing our food offering and launching a new service KX² Go! Healthy meal boxes created for our food bank users. We’re passionate about great tasting food and the pleasure of sharing it with others and are committed to providing food that is fresh and wholesome. Our new service will focus on providing nutritional products that support health and well-being. We’ll be creating new meal solutions and teaching people and families how to cook from scratch.

You’ll now be able to order meal boxes, which have all the fresh ingredients for you to create your own meals at home, a fun way to get everyone cooking.

You can access the food bank and our new KX² Go! service for FREE 3 times, then you will be charged a £3 weekly fee to continue to use the service. To access our new KX² Go! service please continue to use our online referral form.

Youth Work:

We want to create more positive diversions for and with young people and introduce creative ways to help them develop, become more independent and more open minded. The key is building their social and communication skills, giving them the tools to get employed and generally gain the right amount of confidence to succeed in life and we do this in through a variety of projects inclusive of:-

ONE MIC, ONE LIFE

One Mic, One Life is back and we’re excited to continue our fun and exciting workshops; to deter young people from getting involved in knife and gang crime. Yes we’re slightly off the pace, but we wanted to get our online package right. Spending a few weeks to see where our young people are engaging; and what methods to adopt that would reach them the most.

Young people can now access online varied activities and flexible support; which includes creative workshops, group and fitness activities, one to one support and advice and access to employment, training.

CHEER & TUMBLING

Our weekly cheerleading and tumbling sessions are back! A great way to learn new skills, make life long friendships and build confidence, strength and overall fitness.

Classes will be streamed across our secure video conferencing system which allows everyone to participate in a fun and safe environment. We’re also recruiting new members that’s the great thing about going online. We’re able to teach more young people, who may not have had the opportunity to attend previously.

Sessions will be delivered by Autumn all the way in Florida ; which is as exciting as it is new and fresh to us. Part of our Coach 2 Success project, Autumn is now coaching cheerleading in the USA. That’s the magic of ‘One Mic, One Life’. We really do #makeadifference

Volunteer with us

Urban Community Projects can only work thanks to the dedication and skills of our wonderful volunteers. We're currently looking for great people to help us continue grow and make a real difference, and in return for a minimum commitment of 8 hours a month, we provide our regular volunteers with online training in safeguarding, mentoring and leadership skills, as well as the chance to virtually meet lots of new local volunteers.

If you have specialist skills you'd like to offer to us (in particular expertise in fundraising, social media, PR and marketing), please contact us by completing our volunteer registration form; we really need your support.

Volunteer with us — URBAN COMMUNITY PROJECTS

PLEASE KEEP DONATING

We are appealing for more food donations and financial contributions to keep the food bank open during this unprecedented time.

You can donate food every Monday - Thursday between 10am - 12pm.

You can also make a financial donation on our JustGiving page. £10 could go a long way to keeping food on a families table. https://www.urbancommunityprojects.org.uk/make-a-donation

This year our chosen family are the Robertsons. We have worked with the family over the last two years helping them to navigate their way through the trials of child Autism and the effects it has had on the family. You’ll be able to follow their incredible story at www.urbancommunityprojects.org.uk.