Updated July 2023
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Grant amount: £15,000
www.samaritans.org/branches/central-london/
Affiliated to the wider Samaritans charity but independent and self-funded, Central London Samaritans provide free telephone, webchat and face-to-face support to people who are experiencing suicidal feelings. Their centre in Soho is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and has over 400 volunteers.
A Fishmongers’ Grant is supporting Listening to London, a drop in and community outreach project which provides emotional support to people experiencing distress and suicidal feelings in London. The project aims to support groups which have particularly high levels of suicide – homeless, prisoners, students and the LGBTQ+ communities – through weekly drop–in support from volunteers and listening services.
Grant amount: £23,000
Established with the aim to improve the quality of school food, the charity runs several projects aiming to educate young people about producing and cooking healthy food and also campaigns for an overhaul of school food policy and funding.
The grant from the Fishmongers’ Company’s Charitable Trust is supporting Know Your Onions, a project introducing pupils in London secondary schools to growing produce, selling it at local markets and cooking healthy meals. With the assistance of a gardener and food teachers, students learn about producing fresh, healthy food. The programme is free to schools and the charity is targeting schools with high numbers of students receiving free school meals. On 13 July, schools participating in ‘Know Your Onions’ set out their market stalls alongside professional traders at four major London markets. The markets provide an opportunity for young people to share their produce (as well as how to grow and prepare it) with their local communities. The event also raises funds for future food growing initiatives at the schools and provides a way for young people to engage the public in conversations around topics such as food sustainability and nutrition. Representatives from the Fishmongers’ Company visited Whitechapel Market where enthusiastic young vendors were selling a range of produce including tomatoes, Swiss chard, lettuce, beetroot and herbs.
Grant amount – £29,000
Founded by Oasis Charitable Trust in 2010, Oasis Hub Waterloo was the trust’s first community hub which formed out of Oasis Church Waterloo. The Hub now also includes a primary and secondary school, community centre, café, foodbank, advice centre and a city farm.
Oasis Youth Therapy Services provide trauma-informed one to one and group sessions for young people aged 10-18 in Lambeth. Developed in response to an increased number of young people struggling with poor mental health following the Covid-19 pandemic, the service takes referrals from local secondary schools. Young people are able to access one-to-one therapeutic support with a qualified therapist, or group-based activity sessions with a focus on improving wellbeing through developing skills and social connections.
Grant amount: £20,000
Beating Time’s purpose is to help people to survive a prison sentence and to thrive on release. The charity was established in 2014 to take choirs into prisons, harnessing the physical and mental health benefits of regular group singing, but from early on it also had a focus on supporting people into employment. These two strands of the charity’s work are interrelated as singing in a choir can improve an individual’s general wellbeing, social skills and confidence, and consequently the likelihood of them successfully securing employment.
In 2019, Beating Time piloted Inside Job, an innovative programme which trains individuals serving sentences to be peer Recruiters. The Recruiters support other people in prison to prepare for employment and to help them to set up a job post-release. The charity has developed a network of employers from a range of industries who will interview candidates in prison and also has a team of recruiters working in the community to provide one-to-one recruitment support. Inside Job has grown rapidly in recent years, delivering over 290 job starts to date. The Fishmongers grant will help to sustain the programme as Beating Time looks to further expand its reach through collaboration with other charities.
Beating Time’s vision is ’for every prison to have the arts embedded in their rehabilitation work providing a model for a creative, inclusive, strong community and a team of trained peer Recruiters transforming employment opportunities for people being released.
© The Fishmongers’ Company 2024
