Community Service
We use our social impact profits to support community service activities, focusing on the marginalised in and around Portsmouth, including refugees, asylum seekers and other recent arrivals in our community.
Our flexible mechanism of funding allows us to supplement other typical avenues of charity funding, often as bridging funding to allow for prompt, nimble and targeted help. Our community projects offer assistance for migrant integration and access to local services.
The dedicated work we do to benefit our community was recognised in October 2022 at the annual Portsmouth Innovation Awards established by The News Portsmouth and BAE Systems. We were awarded the ‘Community Innovation Award’ sponsored by START-UP Disruptors for innovatively making a positive social change in the local area.
Employment Support for Migrants
This programme, first started in February 2022 and now in its fourth run, takes a small cohort of job applicants through the job search process (CV and cover letter writing; job search and preparing for job interviews).
The programme is run in collaboration with City of Portsmouth College and Workers’ Educational Association. We are grateful to work together in service of our community.
Many newcomers are allowed to work. These include those who received positive decisions on their asylum claims and those who meet critical shortages in the economy. Many want to professionally integrate and contribute to the local economy.
We offer employment support sessions that individuals can pre-book. We host experienced community workers who offer individualised mentoring for those looking to enter the labour market. Every applicant requires a bespoke approach, since each person’s education, technical skills and English abilities will differ.
Food with Friends
Co-funded by a Portsmouth City Council’s Community Inclusion Grant, with funding matching from Work Better Innovations, Food with Friends is simply what it says on the box.
Sitting around the dinner table, sharing a lovely meal in the company of friends, is how this project was fittingly conceived during a cost-of-living crisis in the UK. Food with Friends has two deliverable objectives in mind:
- Providing a warm and nutritious meal in a socially engaged atmosphere and warm space for members of the migrant community. The event helps with alleviating isolation during the winter months for members who may not have the option of eating out.
- Reducing health inequalities between minorities and the rest of the population by running a series of public health workshops around physical and mental well-being. Topics covered have included: dental hygiene, mental health and self-care, maternity care and very basic first aid.
Through this project, we aspire to create a welcoming space for the migrant community during a time of national hardship. At the same time, we support small local catering businesses, who provide the nutritious and international food for our participants.
Bridge Funding: Welcome Wheels
Welcome Wheels provides asylum seekers and refugees with refurbished bicycles, alongside a training course on road safety. In November-December 2022, WBI provided bridge funding to get donated bikes serviced and checked for road safety and distributed to recipients before longer-term funding came in for the project.
Our bridge funding helped collaborating organisations and businesses (SusTrans, Portsmouth City of Sanctuary, Southsea Cycles and road safety trainer Adrian Saunders) get the bikes as quickly as possible to the migrants who use them to go to classes, training and volunteering.
Newcomers to our community in need of a convenient mode of transportation, especially during a cost of living crisis, benefitted from having greater mobility around the city.
Our aim for the bridge funding was to support the growth of sustainable transportation and migrants’ meaningful local integration. Having a bicycle motivated many not only to join English classes, but many also engage in volunteering activities, such as beach cleaning and tree planting, in Portsmouth to the benefit of the local community.
Work With Other Charities
Solidarity for Ukraine with the Portsmouth Football Club
Together with Pompey in The Community, the charitable arm of Portsmouth Football Club, and other charity groups in Portsmouth, Work Better Innovations co-organised an event for Ukrainian children to wave in players onto the pitch in a football match in solidarity for Ukrainian refugees and provide a platform for cultural exchange. Please read more about this special football game, at WBI joins Pompey In the Community in Support of Ukraine.
[Short video posted by the Hampshire Ukrainian Community]
“Portsmouth Ambassadors” with City of Portsmouth College
The Portsmouth Ambassadors Programme engages the local community and businesses to drive passion for the city, recruiting volunteering ‘ambassadors’ to carry the message of the unique history of Portsmouth, from the sunken Mary Rose Ship of Henry VIII to the city serving as a major launchpad for D-Day.
Working with the City of Portsmouth College, WBI hosts annual Portsmouth Ambassadors sessions for the migrant community, which helps with their integration into the everyday life of our beautiful waterfront city.
