Charities team up to support women and children in one of the country’s most deprived areas

Four charities and social enterprises have teamed to support women and children in one of the country’s most disadvantaged areas.

The Space and Voice project has been launched in Westminster by Greenhouse Sports, alongside Place2Be, Marylebone Project, and Munch in Marylebone.

The scheme takes a holistic approach to wellbeing, aimed at tackling rising health challenges like social isolation as well as poor mental and physical health across the borough.

According to the homeless charity, Cardinal Hume Centre, 25 per cent of Westminster’s children are currently living in poverty.

The Space and Voice project will focus on the Church Street Ward, which ranks among the top 10 per cent most disadvantaged wards in the country.

Each of the four organisations will offer their unique expertise when delivering the project, covering sports, mental health support, homelessness services and catering training.

Greenhouse Sports, a sport for development charity based Marylebone, will serve as the project’s operational centre, providing free sports coaching and mentoring, alongside community engagement opportunities.

These sessions will run alongside mental health support services and counseling from Place2Be, coaching and nutrition education for women facing homelessness from The Marylebone project, and catering training and nutritional workshops from Munch in Marylebone, a social enterprise specialising in homemade food for local businesses.

Greenhouse Sports chief executive, Don Barrell, said: “We’re thrilled to be leading this project. 

“Together, we’re making a lasting impact on people in our community.”

The programme has been funded by Westminster council’s Healthy Communities Fund.

Cllr Nafsika Butler-Thalassis, deputy leader and cabinet member for adult social Care, public health and the voluntary sector said: “The Healthy Communities Fund exemplifies how serious we are about reducing health inequalities in Westminster. 

“Support from the fund will ensure that projects like this one are able to deliver for a number of years.

“Partnerships like the Space and Voice project are perfectly placed to help vulnerable women, young people and children and show that when voluntary organisations come together they can achieve so much more than the sum of their parts. 

“I hope that we will see many more collaborations like this across the voluntary sector in the future.”

 Pictured top: Greenhouse Sports at Westminster Academy (Picture: Greenhouse Sports)