Black and minority ethnic communities
Barnardo's North West wish to develop services working with BME communities which aim to:
- increase opportunities and chances for children, young people and their families
- involve young people in making decisions about what we do and how we do it
- assist families in building bridges between different communities in that area
- make sure all children, young people and their families are able to take part in activities and, whenever possible, run their own
- support families when they have difficulties to sort out
- develop people’s skills and confidence so they can do as much as possible with their talents, to benefit both themselves and their community
- working towards meeting Every Child Matters outcomes
- work in partnership with other community groups and agencies to meet our aims
One example of a Barnardo's North West Project that does work with BME communities is the ASHA project in Oldham.
'Communities in Oldham are often segregated', explains Liz Mcllroy, the Asha Children’s Services Manager. 'An awareness of this division is at the heart of Asha’s work. Asha runs various services which are linked to the needs of the community. After-school clubs are provided with the explicit aim of bringing children together from different communities.'
Asha means ‘hope’ in Bangla and the staff try to inject that by running services that enable parents and young people to take more control of their lives. ‘When you help people who mostly can’t speak English, you really feel you’ve done something for them’, explains Sharma, the tri-lingual Advice and Advocacy Worker. ‘One person said to me if it wasn’t for Asha they would have been homeless and penniless… They would have been completely lost.’
The project works with a range of other local organisations, from the Oldham Youth Service to the local church and local schools. This partnership work means the project is embedded in the community and without it the project would not be anywhere near as successful.
