Past Special Initiatives
Past special initiatives include:
Building Blocks
A report into the development of second tier support for front-line organisations.
Count Us In
Count Us In ran from 2000 to 2005. It considered the lack of support for small disability groups and self-advocacy groups of people with learning disabilities in London. Count Us In did not always run smoothly but overall, good progress was made. Individuals and groups gained in confidence and made a significant contribution towards amending the Mental Capacity Bill, to ensure that it really did meet the needs of people who are disabled and from black and minority ethnic groups. Download the full or summary reports here.
Employability Forum
Employability exists to provide practical help to qualified professionals from refugee communities in Britain. It was originally our initiative in partnership with refugee community organisations and refugee agencies, which was established as a separate registered charity in 2000.
Evelyn Oldfield Unit
The Unit was established in 1994 by a consortium of funding bodies and agencies which work with refugee community organisations, including ourselves, Thames Telethon, London Borough Grants (now London Councils), the Refugee Working Party and the Refugee Council.
Its aim is to develop specialist support for refugee organisations to enable them to adequately tackle the pressing needs of the communities they serve.
Refugee Communities History Project
A project to document and demonstrate the cultural, social and economic contributions made by members of refugee communities to London society since 1951. It has recorded the experiences of individual refugees from the time they first arrived in the city to the present day. These orally and visually recorded histories were archived and exhibited at the Museum of London. The project was led by Evelyn Oldfield Unit.
Resource Unit for Supplementary and Mother-tongue Schools
The Resource Unit was created in response to research by Trust for London in 1996, which revealed that many supplementary and mother-tongue schools needed not only financial support, but also additional skills to obtain and handle funding and run classes more effectively. It became an independent organisation in 1999. It is now the National Resource Centre based at the education charity, Continyou.