News

AFRIDAC have been given 3 years grant by the National Lottery Community Fund

AFRIDAC have been given 3 years grant by the National Lottery Community Fund for our project Strengthening Local African Voices in London for our project Strengthening Local African Voices in London. These will allow AFRIDAC to train and mentor 30 Black Community Advocates in London.  As an advocacy organisation, AFRIDAC is incapable of getting involved in the many advocacy issues bedevilling the Black community in the UK. We have identified the lack of capacity in advocacy skill within the Black community. To bridge the gap, AFRIDAC Community Advocacy and Mentoring programme have been training an army of Community Advocates in the UK. Community Advocates are local to their community, passionate about local issues and able to make a change with the right skills.

We have been able to secure 3 years grant from The National Lottery Community Fund for our project Strengthening Local African Voices in London. These will allow AFRIDAC to train and mentor 30 Black Community Advocates in London.

The advocacy training session and mentoring will improve beneficiaries’ personal development growth, mindset, and self-confidence. The sessions will help in setting achievable goals that will empower and inspire beneficiaries to fulfil their full potential and become a better version of themselves using an integrative and strengths-based approach which empowers individuals to make positive changes in their lives.

The project will build the capacity of members of the African and Afro-Caribbean communities. Enhanced capacity of the community will help to effect social change and provide a platform to share their stories. Other outcomes include developing a community of practice, publishing an impact report, increasing self-confident, self-esteem, improved mental health and well-being.

The African and Caribbean communities in the UK have experienced years of systemic and institutional racism, inequalities, and endemic poverty. Covid-19 exacerbated the situation through increasing food poverty, limited access to statutory provisions, high unemployment rate, homelessness, increasing cases of domestic violence, digital divide, data poverty, increasing cases of mental health illness, depression, suicide and bereavement.

AFRIDAC has a track record of working with the African community to deliver advocacy messages and effecting social change. Through various grants over the years we have engaged with the African community in the UK by delivering advocacy workshops to address poverty and inequality, mental health services for young people and African men and women through our African Men Safe Space (AMSS) and Black Women Safe Space (BWSS).