Our services are designed to help refugees & asylum seekers fully intergrate into our community, helping them to build new, successful lives and relationships.
There is much that we can learn from each other, and we believe it is as important to give our members opportunities to show off their skills as it is to help teach them new ones.
We use art to reduce stress and emotional pain. We are keen to ensure that clients create art without self judgement, and advocate the use of art to help our clients create a picture of their hopes and dreams, increase confidence and self awareness as well as accessing the subconscious mind and change limiting patterns and beliefs.
Our art therapists join us on placement from the University of Chester.
Our community kitchen is the heart of our drop-in centre. We have regular cooks and guest cooks every week who delight us with dishes from around the world! Three times a week, we all sit down together for a communal meal after the English class, and this is where the magic really happens and people from different backgrounds and cultures get to know each other and make friends.
Cleaning up after lunch is also a communal effort! It’s all hands-on deck to wash up but as we have a Level 5Food Hygiene rating, there are always trained staff in the kitchen for each session.
We also provide support with household items and furntiure. We have a dedicated team led by our Donations and Distribution Coordinator who source free second hand items and then distrubute to those who need it most. This team also work hard in delivering food hampers which we are able to supply through the government Household Support Fund.
Our drop-in centre is open three days a week to provide a safe and welcome space for asylum seekers and refugees to meet, gather and enjoy any of our wellbeing activities, our garden, ESOL classes and homemade food.
Our drop-in is warm in winter and cool in summer and the perfect place for new arrivals to meet others and make friends. Each Monday, Wednesday & Friday (11am-2pm) we offer a hot lunch cooked by the community we serve at Grange Baptist Church, Whetstone Lane, CH41 2QS.
We provide a safe place for asylum seekers and refugees to make friends, seek help and get involved in our community. We have plenty of games and activities to keep you busy.
We are funded by the Wirral Family Toolbox to provide support for families with children under 5. We support over 50 families including many women who are single parents. We have a team of volunteers led by our Early Years Outreach Coordinator.
The Early Years Community Outreach Team offers home visits to support refugee and asylum families where there are antenatal mums, babies and/or pre-school children. The main focus of our work is to offer practical and emotional support to families, helping them to build confidence and to access our drop-in centre.
Practical support is usually in the form of providing pregnant and new mums with all the necessary baby equipment that they require, and later providing good quality clothing for children right up to school entry and beyond if necessary.
We also provide nappies, wipes and toiletries at our weekly ‘Stay and Play’ sessions, as well as developmental toys and books.
Emotional support is offered through encouraging mums to attend our Friday morning and general drop-in sessions, accompanying them to hospital and other appointments, and generally offering them a ‘listening ear’ when needed.
Referrals in to our team come from a variety of sources such as midwives, Health Visitors, Children’s Centres, local churches, and of course, word of mouth.
We deliver accredited ESOL classes through LifelongLearning 3 days a week. We also provide informal, non-accredted English classes on Monday & Friday.
Please register your interest by emailing enquiries@aheart4refugees.org.
We run eight English classes per week. This includes a mix of accredited ESOL courses with exams provided by our partners at Lifelong Learning, and informal drop-in English classes for those who may not be able to commit solidly to a weekly lesson or may prefer not to sit an exam.
Funding from Liverpool Charity and Voluntary Services has allowed us to purchase essential materials for these classes. Our informal classes also give mums with toddlers and opportunity to learn as we provide volunteers to help with children, so mums can attend lessons in peace. These classes are also valuable to those who may not be permanently based on the Wirral, but it gives some basic English skills before they move on.
We run a small shop at our drop in where members can purchase second hand clothing and household items for 50p per item. This is a very popular corner of the drop in and is run by a team of our member volunteers.
This year, thanks to funding from the Community Foundation for Merseyside Liverpool One Greener Spaces Fund, we transformed the outdoor space at our drop-in centre to create a community growing space for vegetables and for enjoying the warm summer air. This project, ‘Sow together, Grow Together’, brought people together building, planning and planting and was a 100% community effort.
Beyond our own community, we partnered with Spider Project who helped us create outdoor seating from pallets, our members then painted them, along with the LIPA students who joined us for an entirely different project, and WEM helped us with the construction of our planters and raised beds.
Our sewing room offers members the use of three machines, three days a week and is one of our most popular activities. We have a sewing teacher every Wednesday, and on the other days the room is available for members to use. This space is very busy with making and designing, using fabric from public donations, bags and cushions are made in a matter of minutes for members take home or to sell at one of our fundraisers.
We run two Yoga sessions every Wednesday – 2-3pm and 3-4pm.
