News

Wafaa has been living in England about 10 years as she moved here from Saudi. Her first language is Arabic and when she came into this country, she couldn’t speak any English. Wafaa has got three young children and was invited to the Eid party. When she was invited, she was very excited but equally very worried about if there were going to be any men there. I did reassure her that if there were they would be sat to one side.

Wafaa has little confidence and is socially isolated as she doesn’t have any friends or family living in her surrounding area. Before coming Wafaa contacted me and said to me that if she feels anxious that she will be leaving the Eid party. I did check on Wafaa a few times throughout the event and she was happy to have been part of the Eid party. she commented saying that she was happy with the respect that was given to her and the rest of the ladies who attended were very friendly towards her.

Wafaa is also a council tenant, and the project outcomes were shared with her. She is very interested and is now wanting to be involved in the tenant meetings. With Wafaa coming to the Eid party she has also put her name down to do an ESOL class at Mowbray Gardens Library as one of the professionals who was invited to the Eid party currently tutors sessions there. Wafaa thanked me for looking out for her and has asked if she can attend any further events that are put on at RotherFed

When we were doing the engagement work around neighbourhood centres, we discovered that the group that used to run out of the centre had stopped pre covid and a lot of residents had missed the sessions that were happening there

Following on from the Neighbourhood centre engagement work Neelam has been doing the residents have started holding regular coffee mornings, bingo sessions and chair exercise classes. To build on this engagement I have started to attend some of the sessions and gotten to know the committee, as the sessions continue to grow the group have started to look at getting a constitution and bank account to expand on the activities they run. The group consists of around 12 regular members so far and three committee members but is growing slowly as news spreads.

The first draft of the constitution was made this month and the group are currently making alterations to this document ready for it being adopted. When the group have this and the bank account, they would like to investigate funding to hold luncheon clubs and day trips to expand on their regular activity and hopefully attract more members from the community.

This year’s Easter event in Thurcroft was another great success. The event this year was a joint event with St Simon & St Jude’s Church. The local Councillors, Zac and Thomas Collingham also donated some of their CLF fund which paid for a large part of the event. The event took place on Good Friday and started at 10am with arts and crafts in the church. There was also a raffle and refreshments. The Easter egg hunt started from the church at 12pm and there were 12 clues placed around the village for the children to follow. The hunt finished at the Thurcroft Hub where every child who took place received an Easter egg. There was also a mobile farm where the children could meet and pet the small animals. 

Around 200 children took part in the Easter Egg Hunt which is a fantastic turnout, however, we had only purchased enough eggs for 100 children. A quick trip to Morrisons to purchase another 100 eggs solved this problem though and all the children were happy. 

It is lovely to see how this community really works together and how people appreciate the events and activities that take place.

A couple of quotes from the community.

RotherFed and Voluntary Action Rotherham held a joint training session on ‘Event Planning and Funding Your Event’. This event was booking only due to the amount of people that had expressed interest prior to the event. We didn’t expect the event to fill up as fast as it did, though that suggests that there is a real need for events like this in Rotherham.

The event was attended by 14 individuals from across the whole of Rotherham, this gave us a nice mix with both new groups wanting to get a taste for events and more established groups wanting a refresher after having two years where they have been unable to hold events. The event started with deciding on what your event will be, moving on to budgets, how and where to get funding from, health and safety law to cover the event, and it touched on risk assessments and insurance.

The event had interactive aspects to aid the participants in the learning experience as well as a lot of factual content and handouts that they could take back to the groups and reference later when planning any upcoming events and a reassurance that despite the training we will always be here to help community groups. The feedback received after the session seems positive with attendees feeling better prepared to hold events in the future and a greater depth of knowledge into the processes involved in hosting events, but attendees did add that they would like a more in-depth session to cover risk assessments.

 A quote from one of the attendees ‘the event planning training, I really enjoyed the morning and it was really well put together and gave a great insight into what is needed while planning an event. Hopefully you will be doing some more but I also think it could have been a full day course as there was lots of content in it and I would have loved to have gone into things further when planning events.’

Friends of Dalton, East Herringthorpe and Thrybergh Green Spaces have a very proactive committee and team of volunteers, none more so than their Vice-Chair Nicola J.

Nicola got involved in the group through her connection to Councillor Bennett-Sylvester and the litter picking she was already doing in her free time. As the group officially formed Nicola was voted in to sit on the committee since then her confidence has gone from strength to strength.

Nicola has been instrumental in the group gaining the license for the Vale Road site. She is actively involved in nearly all of the litter picking activity even though she has a very full on work and personal life. She regularly attends the various community coffee mornings that happen throughout the ward, one of which found themselves in need of support as the emerging committee folded. This particular group had the leaders back out of being involved in the organisation of a new group but the residents that pay into the centre still wanted the coffee mornings to run. Nicola went back to the committee of the Green spaces group, explained the situation and the group have agreed to take on the coffee mornings as an extension of their community activity.

Since the group formed in September Nicola has learnt to liaise with partners, council officials and basically anybody who can help to support the group attain their objectives. She is not afraid to be persistent, because, as she says herself “the worse they can say is no”. She has attended training provided by RotherFed and will be gaining more skills going forward as she has already signed up for training being provided by RMBC.

Nicola has taken the lead for the group when applying for funding pots, she has already been successful in securing 3 different funds for different activities that the group are involved in and we have supported her in filling out another application that will be going in next month.

We met with Rachel B and Rachel M to discuss a campaign idea. On our initial meet they presented to us their idea of creating sessions to help individuals who are struggling with their mental health. However they don’t want to create a normal or typical experience where someone comes to talk to you and presents in a boring manner, they want to host an interactive seminar that’s fun with sensory experiences such as dancing, music, props and full of energy and they want to call it GO MENTAL! They have made so much progress over the month we have worked with them and are aiming to be constituted in the coming months. The long-term plan is to be able to deliver this across the borough but the short-term goal is to continue create focus groups to create enjoyable sessions before rolling it out as a larger initiative. They have a presentation and are looking into their own GO MENTAL website and have already begun scouting potential partners.

They want to use their own life experiences and stories of personal struggles to engage with audiences who might not usually attend the usual type of talk or event. This isn’t the conventional method and won’t be for everybody but it is created though real experiences and what they have learned through their own journeys. The aim of the group is to educate and teach techniques that lots of people don’t use or know about that could impact their mental health positively and their day-to-day life. GO MENTAL also want to be able to link relevant partners and groups that teach positive mental health techniques. They want to achieve this by directing attendees to a partner’s room where they can speak to partner representatives about activities and sessions that best suites them. By doing this they take out the “I’ll call them tomorrow” as it is part of the overall experience.

The effort and time they are already dedicating to this project has been amazing. They are 2 very self-motivated individuals who are an absolute joy to work with. We have been able to offer support and set actions for meetings and they have completed them and much more.

“We all struggle sometimes, because let’s face it, life can be hard. But when we have a few tools in our toolkit and if we know we’re not alone, then the rough times can get a little easier. ‘Go Mental’ is an interactive event designed to empower YOU with a collection of tips, tricks and techniques to help you handle everyday stress.

But this is no snooze-fest seminar! Be prepared to boogie*, sing* and be wildly entertained. *No actual talent required. Hosted by Rachel and Rachel (yep, you read that right), they share their own mental health struggles and the extraordinary circumstances that turned them into the mental health mavericks they are today.”