Key facts
Area: Plymouth, Torbay and South Devon, South West
Grant recipient: Shekinah
Project: Growing For Life and Re: Construct
Programme: Reaching Communities
Date of award: Nov 2006 (Project ended 2012)
Amount awarded: £437,759
Shekinah a charity based in Devon, has been delivering services to vulnerable adults in Plymouth, Torbay and South Devon since 1992. They help re-generate lives by tackling the complex issues of homelessness, substance misuse and social exclusion. The charity engages local teens and adults, equipping them with the skills, motivation, confidence and specialist support they need to fully integrate. Their provision includes: a drop-in centre, accommodation, training, an employability programme and an organic fruit and vegetable farm.
Since 1992, Shekinah has grown and evolved into several projects: a drop-in centre, a Temporary Rough Sleepers Hostel, a Charity Shop, a two-tier training initiative (re:solve training), a Social Enterprise, a Supported Employability Programme, an organic fruit and vegetable farm (Growing for Life), a Drop-In Centre and Steady Work Training Initiative (re:construct project).
As John Hamblin, the Chief Executive of Shekinah explains:
“While Shekinah has seen many changes to the way we operate, we haven’t changed our core belief that everyone deserves another chance and that as an organisation we meet people where they are as opposed to where we would like them to be. I believe delivering our services in an unconditional, non-judgemental way has been one of the key factors to our success”
Shekinah received Reaching Communities funding from the Big Lottery Fund in 2010 to continue and expand the provision of services at their drop-in centre for disadvantaged people such as homeless, unemployed, people with drug/alcohol addictions and long-term unemployed, with the ultimate aim of providing sustainable accommodation and employment. Primary services include basic items such as food, hygiene and clothing through to information, advice, training and support for the beneficiaries. This organisation received funding from BIG under the VCS programme in 2003 to allow them to build a much larger and more accessible centre which they currently use for this project.
Growing For Life Project
One of the projects run by Shekinah is the Growing For Life project, in partnership with the Eden Project. This project works with prisoners, based on the simple proposition that growing food inside prisons has a marked benefit on health, behaviour and outlook. They provide learning in prisons in horticulture, enterprise, life skills and computing and a network of social businesses outside the prison, to offer extended learning opportunities and jobs.
The programme started as a simple prison gardening project at Dartmoor Prison. This has now been extended to a number of other prisons and led to the formation of a community enterprise. In partnership with the Cisco-supported Prisons ICT Academy, a blended learning programme is being developed, to enable prisoners not only to grow, nurture and harvest food, but to support a range of associated life skills on leaving prison. As one of the beneficiaries of the project said:
“I can’t believe how much support I have received from staff. When I felt as though I was completely on my own, they helped me realise that I wasn’t and that I could get my life back on track by focusing on making positive steps forward. I have got my confidence back and I stand up straight, I can look people in the eye and I am looking forward to what the future holds.”
One of their networked social businesses is an integrated scheme at Torbay, based on horticulture and farming. This project is set up to receive people released from prison who wish to develop their skills further, gain recognised qualifications and/or their knowledge to include marketing, distribution, teaching, catering, construction and maintenance. It also provides training, volunteering and employment opportunities for those at risk of offending, homeless people and those on probation, including providing an alternative sentence to custody.
Re-Construct Project
Another project run by Shekinah in Torbay is the Re-Construct Project, which helps vulnerable young men move on in their lives by teaching them plastering, brick-laying, painting and decorating.
Through this training they are able to offer multi-disciplined skilled construction labour for building projects in Plymouth, Torbay and other parts of Devon and Cornwall; minor maintenance work like re-painting and re-decorating buildings for local authorities and housing associations and a broad range of cleaning services of empty properties prior to re-occupation.
The demand for all of Shekinah’s services is at an all-time high, as the cuts to local authority spending have led to them receiving increasing requests for financial help. So, Shekinah have had to adapt and look at more creative ways to help people and meet the increasing demand for their services. They continue to work to challenge the increase in social injustice by helping people build new lives and new futures.
Find out more about these two projects by watching this video about Shekinah.
You can also see some more images from Shekinah.