We are delighted to be able to award a local charity and a Community Interest Company almost £2000 as seed grants towards their work.

Aston-Mansfield Charitable Trust (AMCT) Seed Grants are available for charities and organisations with an annual income of £10,000 or less, whose work benefits Newham residents with a focus on supporting and promoting health and well-being within the community. 

We have awarded Bridging Barriers £1000 to support their work providing equal access to opportunities for young people aged 16-25 from ethnically diverse and low socioeconomic backgrounds.

We have also awarded Ekota Social Care £959 to support their work addressing the health and social care needs of vulnerable older people, impacted by mental health, disability, poverty, and hardship.

Find out more about the grants and both organisations below:

Bridging Barriers

Bridging Barriers is a registered charity focused on providing equal access to opportunities for young people aged 16-25 from ethnically diverse and low socioeconomic backgrounds.

They focus on pre-employment support through mentoring, to build confidence and resilience in their mentees by giving them access to role models who are able to equip them with the resources, tools and mindset to succeed in their field of interest.

In the past two years, through their one-to-one personalised mentoring, they have matched over 400 young people with mentors, empowering them with the soft and hard skills needed to thrive, whilst building employment networks to strengthen access to opportunity. 

How the Grant will Help

“The grant will allow us to build a cohesive website and cater to our service users. The grant will allow us to recreate our website using a professional template and as a result of this, we would have enhanced our layout, with a new design and build from a professional graphic designer. The impact will also include a fully integrated sign up form for mentees and mentors, bringing more consistency to our website, thus improving user experience. Further outcomes also include SEO optimization through plugins, which will help us to expand our visibility through organic search results. As a result, these efforts drive more visitors to our website, increasing the chances for more conversion which leads to more young people being supported, thus more lives being changed.” CEO and Founder of Bridging Barriers

Where to find them 

Ekota Social Care

The Ekota Social Care is an independent Community Interest Company (CIC) based in Stratford that was set up in June 2022 by the local BAME Communities living in the London Borough of Newham.

Its aim is to address the health and social care needs of vulnerable older people, people impacted by mental health, disability, poverty, hardship, and opportunity to reduce isolation, loneliness, poverty and poor quality of life.

Black & Minority Ethnic older people, aged over 50s, those are one of the most isolated and deprived community groups in Newham. Ekota aims to help, assist and support with their educational, social & health care and welfare needs to help and support their integration into Society in the United Kingdom, and opportunities to reduce isolation, loneliness, poverty, and poor quality of life. 

The organisation run a range of services to members of BAME aged over 50s in particular older people and people with poor health. These are Day Centre Services including Health & Wellbeing, Outreach & Home Visitation, Carers Support Network and Home Care Service (Independent living assistance). 

How the Grant Will Help

“Ekota will widen and deepen its impact on the BAME community.  In widening, due to poor information it will reach the new and various elements with social care needs.  In deepening, due to challenges of those getting older and less confident, aspects of increase of outreach volunteers, meetings or gatherings will be effective.” – Mohammed Chowdhury, Ekota Social Care

Where to Find Them

Ekota will use local free magazines and newspapers to promote the project, their project handouts will be multilingual and distributed at venues with high footfall such as shopping centres, community centres, doctors’ surgeries, clinics and libraries. 

They will also utilise their website and partner organisations to assist them in raising the profile of the project.

Find Out More

Find out more about AMCT Seed Grants, who can apply, and get the application form here: bit.ly/AMCTSeedGrants