We are extremely delighted to announce that we have recently received an incredibly generous grant from the Morrisons Foundation to start our ‘Fit for Life’ project, which will include physical activities and nutrition sessions to promote better health and wellbeing in our community. The funding lasts for 2 years, and our passion is to play a role in reducing high rates of obesity and diabetes in our local area and giving local people the opportunity to prioritise their health and make longer lasting changes as they choose to be fit (and healthy) for life. Read the full article in the T&A link below.

https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/19495699.charity-granted-huge-boost-massive-morrisons-donation/

Our Befriending Project is now underway, and we are looking for caring and compassionate volunteers who are willing to offer one hour a week to engage, encourage and equip those experiencing social isolation and destitution by providing emotional and practical support. Do you have a passion for helping people, some spare time and a desire to give back to the community?

We hosted a ‘Thank you’ lunch to celebrate our amazing team of volunteers who were involved in our Friday Food Delivery project; people who dedicated their Friday afternoons to deliver a two-course meal cooked by our Welcome Café to destitute asylum seekers and refugees struggling with food poverty.

Over the past 8 months, these volunteers from City Valley Church, the University of Bradford and the local community, have totally committed themselves to show care and compassion, and to befriend individuals and families during a very trying time of lockdowns. Together, they helped to reduce isolation and bring a glimmer of hope. We have been totally blown away by their kindness and generosity and want to honour them for their hearts of service.

The youth project has been running for a year now and we are encouraged by the level of engagement we get most weeks. From having 3 who were struggling to come in, we now have around 10 who consistently join in each week, and we do different things in the aim of building friendships, confidence and community as well as an escape from their reality which may be worrying or hard as the majority are currently in the system seeking asylum.

We are looking for part-time Cafe Coordinator for our Welcome Café to help bring ideas and vision to this brilliant unique project as well as support our amazing tutor and coming along side our cohort of students to thrive, succeed and improve their lives.

The Welcome Café is a project of the Millside Centre. Funded by Bradford Council and working in partnership with Bradford College, refugees are trained in catering skills, learning basic food hygiene, cooking, customer service, and gaining work experience by helping to run the café 3 days a week. Out of the 10 students we trained last year, five are now in part-time or full-time employment. Our café was also recently nominated by the 2021 TES FE Awards for ‘contribution to the community’. We believe that what we’ve achieved in the past year despite the challenges of covid19 has only just scratched the surface and that our little cafe has so much untapped potential that just needs the right person with skills, experience, passion and drive to bring these to the fore.

To find out more about the role, please click the next links to access the Cafe Project for Refugees – job description and the Application form – Welcome Cafe Coordinator.

The deadline is Friday 30th July 2021 and the interview will take place on Monday 2nd August.

We are thrilled to be working in partnership with The Cellar Trust to delivery a peer support group for people who access Millside Centre and the wider community. Peer Support groups are a welcoming and supportive group where people with lived experience of mental distress come together to help and support each other.

The purpose of the group will be:

  • to provide a safe and confidential space to talk
  • promote self-care, growth and resilience
  • discuss, expand and improve our coping strategies

The next group will start on Tuesday 2nd November, 1:00pm-3:00pm here at Millside. To find out more, sign up or refer a client please call 01274 409661 or email: info@millsidecentre.org

Millside Centre Team

 

It is our great pleasure to announce that we are relaunching our Welcome Café as part of Refugee Week. After months of our café being closed during lockdown, we have managed to recruit a new cohort of students who are keen to learn both theory and practical catering skills, having the opportunity of bringing in recipes from their countries to cook and sell to the public.

We are thrilled to announce that we recently got some funding from CNET’s Mental Health Grant to start a befriending programme. Over the past year, we have noticed that many of our service users have suffered in silence, directly or indirectly affected by covid19 pandemic; many are on long waiting lists for mental health support but are simply desperate for connection and someone to listen to them.

We are so excited to be working in partnership with Shy Burhan, an amazing local photographer who recently received Arts Council funding to deliver free participatory photography workshops to asylum seekers and refugees who access the Millside Centre. The aim of the project is to offer each participant a creative outlet to tell their stories and enhance their wellbeing using their smart phone cameras.

Isolation Project

During the month of March thanks to a small grant from Incommunities, we organised fun activities including a social distanced cooking session and online exercise classes for women to engage our most isolated clients during lockdown. We identified that 60% of our service users have greatly suffered from isolation especially experiencing loneliness, depression, anxiety, and stress and just needed someone to talk to and find practical ways forward to cope and have fun.