Last year more than 5,000 people accessed services provided at the recently refurbishment Bridge Centre, a once derelict community building in Torry, which now welcomes the community to our popular Café and a growing number of community groups and support services including employment/health initiatives. This year, through the Café, we will be running healthy eating cookery classes, a holiday lunch club for parents and children, health awareness and well-being Open Days with other local health providers and a Seniors Lunch Club.

Alongside Shinnie Electrical Ltd. we are also running a short course, “Intro to Electrics”, for young unemployed adults, giving them a work taster and support to write CVs, interview preparation etc. Due to its success, we are looking to add other trades such as mechanics and plumbing courses. There are also volunteer opportunities in our café with training and qualifications such as Food Hygiene available, to support employability skills. The Bridge Centre is part of the community, providing the services the community wants in order to come together, reduce isolation and move forward.

This funding would help us to deliver these programs by covering some utilities. In addition, our Intro to Electrics course is growing and we are looking to move it into a larger space to be able to train more people, and we are also in conversations to start a second “Intro to…” trade training which would need some finance to cover the start-up costs and to put the first cohort through the training.

We are looking for your support of ‘Loons & Quines o’Mastrick and Northield’ project and the of launch a social campaign with a key focus on history, revitalisation, heritage, multiculturalism, identity and integration of people who live in Mastrick and Northield, Aberdeen. We have been encouraged by the success of similar projects in Torry, Seaton and Old Aberdeen. This also an area where many Poles in Aberdeen live.

Our project is a multifaceted community campaign emphasising diversity as a major potential and strength of modern-day Mastrick and Northield areas. The neighbourhood reflects the dynamic character of local and European history intertwined through stories of the past and the present. On one hand, it is characterised by a strong sense of community amongst the traditional residents. On the other hand, identity of the neighbourhood is influenced by immigration nowadays and, in the case of Poles, population movement going back to the Second World War.

We look to promote the area by focusing on its residents and their personal, cultural and work-related experiences of the neighbourhood by: Community campaign and exhibition (still sourcing a suitable place TBC). Key visual materials will be installed.

The proposed project would enable the two hubs currently operating in Middlefield Community Project and Cummings Park Centre to choose a small scaled live professional dance/theatre production. In addition to this the groups will perform a short dance piece choreographed by dance tutors, based on their chosen production.

Acting as creative initiator's, each group will organise and curate an arts event that brings family and community audiences to their individual hubs. Offering the community a chance to share the joy of live performance.

Young people will choose the roles they want to explore and be mentored by the tutors. The project aims to encourage decision making and empowers the young people to contribute positively to their community, while actively advocating for arts engagement

The project promotes community bonds and connections by offering the community a space to come together and enjoy live productions on their doorstep. The project wishes to address the inequalities that young people living in challenging community’s tackle daily and are historically underrepresented in the arts.

We have a programme of three levels. All the schools start with the first level where we cover the essential and basics of firstaid. We start with how to keep themselves safe, why we do first aid, calling for help, talking about how we can be the ones tohelp friends and family. Not only with people that we know but this can also be used in the wider community. We also coverasthma, choking, DRAB and recovery position. We have discussion, the children do group work, fill in booklets they can keepand hands on practice of DRAB and recovery position.

The funding would help support with the costs associated with the Play schemes and September weekend to Craig Tara, therefore making it more affordable/low cost for the parents on a low income/single parent household.  This will also help with new resources for the children to play with while attending the junior clubs/toddler groups currently ran at the centre . 

This project involves the creation of a children’s book about St Fittick’s Park to be distributed to schools, the library and children within Torry. The aim of the project is to engage local children in reading and connecting with nature and the outdoors,particularly in St Fittick’s Park. Writer and academic Orla Shortall (www.orlashortall.com) is currently working on a draft of the story called “Fern Fox and St Fitticks Friends”. The story follows the adventures of four animal friends: Fern the fox, Hannah the hedgehog, Dara the deer and Lucky the duck in St Fittick’s Park. We want to make the book engaging and appealing for children and we are applying for funding to work with a local artist to illustrate the book and local printers Peacock Visual Arts to produce copies for distribution. We will also workshop the story with local residents before its publication. The book includes dialogue in Doric, celebrating the North East’s unique linguistic heritage.There will be events organised around the book including a book launch in the St Fittick’s Park outdoor classroom with nature engagement activities for children and a writing workshop to encourage the children to write their own story about the park. The costs for this will be covered through existing funding for the outdoor classroom and volunteer time.

The Peep service would like funding to deliver the Peep TALK programme in Kincorth. This is a free group for families with young children (aged 0-5 years) and differs from our traditional Peep groups with the focus being on supporting families to support their young children’s speech, language, and communication. Since Covid, there has been an increase of referrals to NHS Speech and Language services and the waiting lists to receive support are extremely long. The Peep TALK programme, co- written by a speech and language therapist, would alleviate some of the need for the NHS speech and language services and/or provide families support while they are on the waiting list. The Peep TALK sessions will include singing, sharing stories, play activities, and opportunities for families to socialise all while supporting their children’s development of speech and language.

In order to support families in the local area, we would like to develop our space to be more child friendly.

For safety, we would like to purchase child gates to prevent access to the kitchen and to outside, allowing parents and carers to be more relaxed within the space.

We have a number of toys but require storage space to make them more accessible and would like to purchase suitable units for this purpose.

The floor is hardwood which makes it great for riding bikes and pushing buggies around, but cold for little ones, so we would like to purchase a large rug for the floor to make the area more comfortable.

For several years, the community flat has supported local residents with emergency food provision. Due to the steep rise in food and energy costs, job losses as a result of the pandemic and the downturn in oil and gas services and the introduction of Universal Credit, more and more vulnerable residents are seeking support to feed themselves and their families. We provide food to everyone who needs it – babies, children, single people, pensioners, refugees, asylum seekers and those who have No Recourse to Public Funds. We provide a food parcel (approx. two days of emergency food) once a fortnight and this is topped up through weekly deliveries from Fareshare and donations from Cairncry Community Centre who have links with the Co-op.  Demand has increased exponentially over the past few years and despite reducing our service from once a week to once every two weeks, we still struggle to meet demand. The foodbank service plays a vital role in maintaining health and equalities within the community and is a lifeline for many. 

We are applying for funding to expand our free soup and sandwich club from once per month to two times per month. The overall aim of the soup and sandwich club is to reduce social isolation, improve mental health, and to reduce food poverty which are key issues in our locality. The project will run on a Thursday between 11:00 – 13:00 whereby local people can come along to their community centre and enjoy a light lunch of free soup and sandwiches. This project will reduce the barriers tolocal people having access to a free nutritious meal whilst developing stronger ties to their local area. This project will also help towards the important goal of reducing the impact of the cost-of-living crisis by ensuring people do not go hungry.