In this issue:

• Welcome from Deryck - AHPN's Chief Executive
• Capacity Building Workshops
• New Funding Oppurtunities
• Project of the Month

Welcome to our Grantees

A very warm welcome to all of you to the May edition of #Linked2AHPN, the AHPN newsletter for our grantees.

Firstly can I say ‘CONGRATULATIONS’ to all of you. The mere fact that you are reading this means that you are a successful applicant to our BAME Healthy Communities grant round. Well done! This was an extremely competitive fund with over 800 applicants and funding for just over 100 projects. So you are very special and AHPN and partners thank you for the work that you are doing within your communities.

It is AHPNs aim to keep in touch with you during the granting period and support you where we can. Your brilliant grants manager Tess will have already been in touch by email and will be a point of contact for any queries or clarifications.  Also, we will be in contacting you soon with dates for forthcoming zoom sessions where you can get to meet fellow grantees and hear about the great work that your colleagues are doing.

As and when you come to the end of your project period you will be receiving information from us about monitoring and reporting back, so please do remember to monitor your project activity and keep records of attendance, activities and spending.

All the best with your projects,

Deryck

Capacity Building Workshops

We all know that the Black voluntary sector has long been underfunded, under resourced and under supported. We are pleased that many of you were able to recently take advantage of the BTEG capacity building sessions that we advertised which addressed some of the issues behind these anomalies. We now have recordings for some of these sessions which you can see at the link immediately below. (As more become available we will provide further links).

Also you will have seen the information sent out by Tess recently asking about your ongoing needs for capacity support and training.

From the responses received it is likely that during forthcoming months we will be running expert sessions on the following:

• Funding sources and options
• Financial Planning (future) budgeting, forecasting and core funding
• Bid Writing/funding applications
• Contracts and Legalities
• Partnerships and/or Collaboration

Look out for dates and further information on how to sign up. Check out the exciting learning opportunities from London Learn Fest and workshops for parents being run by one of our Grantees - Parentskills2go (below).

⛺ #LdnLearnFest ⛺

12-19 May, Online 

Book your free tickets now for our Festival of Learning - across the week you’ll be able to engage with a huge selection of performances, proposals and presentations for funders looking at building stronger communities post-covid.

From 12 to 19 May we're going to highlight the brilliant work of civil society over the past year, share best practice on what works (and what doesn’t) and ensure that change ‘sticks’ to make the capital a better place for all Londoners.

The Festival of Learning is going to build on work undertaken by us and the wider funding community to make sure that civil society is supported beyond the pandemic, and that things don't just go back to 'normal'.

With contributions from Baobab Foundation, The Berkeley Foundation, City Bridge Trust, Facebook, Institute for Voluntary Action Research, LGBT+ Consortium, , The London Community Foundation, Muslim Charities Forum, The National Lottery Community Fund, Reos Partners and many more, the Festival will provide a much needed opportunity for funders to take a step back, listen and learn about work happening across sectors as we look towards the future.

There will be a focus on how to make grant making more equitable, open and trusting, how community is changing in the digital age, and how the experiences of collaboration in the past year can shift the dial on funding practice in the long term.

Book your free ticket now through the button below – we’ll then be in touch again next week with the full programme so you can pick the sessions you’d like to go to across the Festival.

New Funding Opportunities

AHPN is constantly looking for funding opportunities that it can either access to further support you, or guide you towards what to apply for.

Our Healthy Communities fund partner; Africa Advocacy Foundation have extended their 'Community React Fund' deadline until next Friday 14th May 2021. 

To apply click on the link below or for further information you can email them on grants@africaadvocacy.org or visit their website on www.africadvocacy.org. 

Please note that there are other Comic Relief Global Majority Fund intermediary grant programmes running currently which are targeting diverse groups of communities experiencing racial injustice. Visit the following link for a full list of funders. 

Project of the Month

Each month we would like to showcase the work of one of our grantees (so please do get in touch with us if you would like to write something about the progress of your project, any highlights or challenges).

THE WELLNESS TRIBE CIC

"With the funding from AHPN we managed to accomplish a lot.

In a deep time of need through COVID 19, The Wellness Tribe CIC adapted and extended their work to get food and essential supplies to members of our community facing hunger and food insecurity issues.  As you are well aware we still live with the consequences and uncertainties around COVID19 and what is very evident, is that there are many people finding it hard to recover from the initial crisis and struggling to find a path for recovery just yet.  

The Wellness Tribe CIC was specifically established to reach out to those who find it hard to come forward, especially relating to Mental Health struggles, and as we see COVID 19 continue to affect all our lives, we know the strong benefit to helping relieve basic needs such as hunger and lack of basic supplies as a positive to helping to improve mental, emotional and financial wellbeing.

The Wellness Tribe CIC is a BAME-led Organisation established initially in Partnership with Byker Community Centre, in Newcastle. Our commitment and passion to help all within our community enable us to reach all that is in need. We are working as the first point of contact for families and individuals experiencing, or at high risk of experiencing mental health issues, as a result of social, economic and personal factors such as refugee and asylum experiences, racial traumas, poverty, lack of skills, language barriers, health and economic inequalities, including unemployment and poor housing.

The Wellness Tribe CIC seeks to provide Preventive and Intervention support and is innovative in its person centred approach for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people in our community, giving a strong focus to those who struggle to seek help due to their background, experiences and cultural differences.

Initially, when we applied for the Micro-grant from AHPN we needed more than what we could apply for, this is because we are a new organisation and we are still struggling with funding, but in the end, something really amazing happened. We needed money to pay for our food fees from Fare Share North East, to be able to continue providing these weekly free food parcels to our Community in Newcastle and because we were successful with this funding Fareshare North East appreciated our efforts and this accomplishment and ended up relieving the remaining amount we owned, giving us some months free, which resulted in having all our debt with them cleared. This was a very generous gesture from Fareshare North East.  So, it all started with AHPN micro-funding, small as it was, it ends up resulting in beautiful teamwork of three organisations - The Wellness Tribe CIC, AHPN and Fareshare North East and together we managed to keep running these vital services that make a huge difference in the lives of the people that we support. We are covered until June 2021.  This gives us time to focus on other priorities of our Organisation and to prepare for our next fundraising.

This story shows that small can mean a lot and sometimes all it takes is one action to make the difference. We hope this story can inspire you to always do your best and you might be surprised with a beautiful result."

Maryam Rodrigues

Director and Co-founder

The Wellness Tribe CIC

www.thewellnesstribee.co.uk