Musical workshops, discounted fruit and vegetable stall, English for speakers of other languages, I.T. ‘Drop-Ins’ are a bit of what’s going on at the Southwater Community Centre. Southwater has already received over £62,000 from the Hastings Regeneration Partnership to set up the Centre and to keep things running. Residents, both young and old are encouraged to drop in on Wednesday mornings for a cuppa and natter about what’s going on. Any queries, call Southwater Community Centre’s Sonia on 781337.
The Credit Union Bank is now open at many community facilities throughout the town. It visits the Southwater Community Centre on Tuesdays from 10.30am to 11.30pm to provide residents with low cost loans and accessible savings.
For those not in the know AIF stands for Area Investment Framework. These three words mean a whole new approach to the way regeneration is planned for larger areas such as Hastings and Bexhill.
AIF was introduced by regeneration organisation Seeda (South East England Development Agency) and this body, working alongside the Hastings and Bexhill Regeneration Partnerships, has been looking at all the regeneration needs for the whole area.
Eight projects have been created to help strengthen the evening economy in the town centres, identify barriers to employment, develop specific business areas such as tourism, introduce technology such as broadband and identify areas for economic development.
Seeda has made available £300,000 in the first year to fund these projects in addition to the existing Single Regeneration Budget funding which will come to an end in 2007.
Greater Hollington now has a huge support network and many initiatives for parents, grandparents and carers of newborns and children.
One of the new initiatives is a neonatal behaviour assessment, being offered to parents with babies under 8 weeks of age. Since every baby is unique, the assessment explores how the new baby communicates, how this baby likes to be soothed and other preferences the baby has. Parents, siblings and grandparents are all invited and they are often amazed at their new baby’s abilities. One aspect of the assessment, which has proven particularly exciting to new fathers, is showing them how readily their baby recognises familiar faces and voices. The assessment seems to be making a real difference to early bonding and should help develop strong families.
Following the success of two “Grandparent Get-togethers”, a monthly group has been created for grandparents. Some of the grandparents in Greater Hollington provide full time care for their grandchildren, many others are just keen to update their parenting skills and meet other grandparents. The new group combines social time as well as health and childcare information and meets on the last Wednesday of each month from 1pm-3pm at the Four Courts Community Centre.
Providing carefully thought out groups and services is vital for the special transport, isolation, low income and employment issues that some parents in Greater Hollington face. As well as the support groups, project staff, Elayne Forster and Sara Brazier also work with families individually with difficulties they may be having. The staff offer a variety of interventions and support and work closely with Health Visitors, schools and other agencies in Greater Hollington. The project is having a positive impact on family well-being and carer’s resilience to the demands of parenting. Each month the Hastings Regeneration Partnership channels £3,500 of SRB money into the project. For more information, please contact Elayne Forster, Health Specialist (Parenting Support) on 0777-550 8163.
16 teams fought to win the second multi-cultural 5-A-Side Football Tournament at William Parker School in August. The contest brought together many cultures and nationalities including Bengali, Kurdish, African and European communities. These teams included players who are asylum seekers and refugees, encouraging community cohesion and integration between all residents of Hastings and St Leonards.
The teams played tense knockout games and the winning teams of each league were: Orange Warriors, (European); Ekota Seniors (Bengali); Mishmash (mixed cultural) and Kurdistan United A Team (Kurdish). ‘Player of the Tournament’ went to David Ndunduma from the Ark of Hope team, for his consistently good and sometimes exceptional performance.
Football plays a significant part in the reconstruction of post conflict countries and is now playing its own part within the regeneration of Hastings. Sport gives positive contacts across a variety of divides, so natural for the SRB-funded Hastings Trust Community Regeneration Unit to organise. The two-day, four league, 40 match tournament attracted generous sponsorship from Wisdens Sports Shop and the Hastings Borough Council’s Sports 4 U team provided the referees.
The Mayor, Pam Brown, presented trophies and medals to the winning teams and certificates to every player. All players were given a commemorative baseball cap to thank them for their part in the success of the event and the presentations broke out into impromptu song and dance! The weekend was relaxed and fun, with the teams bringing along family and friends for support and encouragement. All teams are looking forward to next year for more good natured rivalry!
Part six of our jargon-buster
A banking scheme that provides straightforward, affordable financial services to people who are usually excluded from high street banks and mainstream financial services.
When organisations such as councils, hospitals and schools work together to identify and solve local problems.
A number of people inhabiting a given physical area who are assumed, by virtue of this fact, to have some degree of social ties or networks between each other. Can also be people who have interests in common, rather than geographical areas.
People with a variety of histories, ideologies, traditions, values, lifestyles and languages living and interacting together. Also described as the range of different value systems existing in a multicultural society.
Hastings Regeneration Partnership brings together the voluntary, public and private sectors to spend £26 million Single Regeneration Budget money provided through South East England Development Agency. With matched funding, the 100 local projects pull in a total of £128 million for social, economic and physical regeneration.
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This page last updated: 29/09/2004