Spring is shaping up to be a busy time at CARAS. A lot has been going on already and we’re not even halfway through the month!
We’ve been running volunteer training sessions and now have 10 new fully trained people ready to get started in our Visiting Project, providing targeted one-to-one support to refugees and asylum seekers who are new to London.
Staff have also been out on various training courses, too, upgrading their knowledge and skills. We’re all doing Mental Health First Aid, deepening our awareness and improving our practice. We’ve been learning about how to develop our fundraising strategy and demonstrate our impact too- thanks to the FSI for some great sessions.
And, we’re incredibly excited to be part of the Museum of London’s new exhibition, City Now, City Future. They will be exploring responses to the challenges of living in cities, with CARAS featuring in the ‘Sharing our City’ category. We’ll share details of this as the project develops.
We’ve been at various events- Tooting Cares hosted a screening of The White Helmets and invited CARAS to be one of their guest speakers. We were amazed at the turn out, the local support for refugees in our community, and the motivation of people to work together to achieve positive change. Thank you, Tooting Cares, and everyone who turned out on the night. We’re also looking forward to meeting with Wandsworth Welcomes Refugees this month, and to catching up with other local refugee and migrant organisations.
There are new workshops taking place at CARAS for young people, including IT sessions, sexual health, cooking and healthy eating, and mental health and wellbeing. And our Gardens of Refuge project is off to a good start- planning meetings have been happening with Transition Town Tooting, dates are booked in, and we’ve already run one garden-themed Family Activity Day. Thanks go to Civil Service Fast Stream volunteers, Team Up, and TTT.