2012 yielded big results for One Community, the rollout of meaningful projects at the communities benefit. To the right illustrates all that we achieved.

2013 meant a lot of connection building and expansion for One Community. Doubling our numbers in nearly every aspect from footfall, number of enquiries, number of partner organisations and community events.

2014 was a big year for One Community. It marked the introduction of community trips. Two trips were organised in conjunction with c2c, one to Dockland Museum and the other to Southend on Sea. These trips would go on to become very popular un the coming years.

2015 was a very successful year, with the Southend trip returning to great reception. Our numbers for footfall and enquiries were around the same as last year, with many if the same projects running. We had a revolving number of 39 volunteers who are on our Volunteer Investment Programme (VIP) who are supported to develop their skills to actively participate in their local community, and achieve their individual career and/or personal goals. We started a two year Steps to Success Project in April 2015 to work with 40 unemployed people to get them Job ready. In the first year of this project, we worked with 20 participants. From these, 12 (60%) gained paid employment, 3 (15%) started their own businesses, 2 (10%) gained confidence to return to work, 1 (5%) started a level 3 apprenticeship course in childcare, and 1 (5%) gained confidence to support their daughter who was long term depression and one started a university course and 1(5%) negotiated more hours at work with his new found confidence. Through our Steps to Success programme, we were able to broker a relationship with Travis Perkins at the London Distribution Park in Tilbury. We supported a further 32 with a crash-course in CV preparation, interview skills and help in navigating the Travis Perkins website to apply for jobs. We later received feedback that our involvement had assisted Travis Perkins in achieving their target of employing 70% local residents. A further 16 volunteers were trained to support our ‘Little things that mean a lot Project’ with the necessary skills, know-how and confidence to adequately support 120 of the most vulnerable 3 people in our community, including acting as advocates in meetings with social landlords and the Council. Out of the 120 supported 56 (46%) reported an increase in their ability to cope with everyday life challenges. The volunteers gained satisfaction from helping people through difficult times and felt empowered to respond to others’ needs. From these 16 volunteers 11 went on to paid employment.

The grant from Lloyds Foundation enabled One Community to work with 274 unique beneficiaries that had issues ranging from eviction to support with reading and writing. The profile of these people were: 52% White English/British, 38% African, 8% White Other (mainly Portuguese, Rumanian and Palish) and 2% Other Ethnic (Scottish, Chinese, Irish/Gypsy Traveller, mixed and Turkish). 190 were females, 84 were males. Most were aged between 25 and 60 years old. Our existence became a liMine far many as face-to-face help received via the local authority and the citizens advice bureau in Thurrock became very litnited, This is partly due to severe cut-backs an some of their previous traditional services, We have had to step up by developing specialist knowledge to support people who come with issues such. as pensions enquiries, evictions, support in court (as a McKenzie Friend), as well as applying for benefits such ss housing. council lax, child tax, working family tax and student loan applications, Many of these services are now being administered through online application processes. So, we have found that people generally need online support as they often don’t have access to the internet nor do they always understand automated call centre assistance. Also, since Brexit the One Community shop has experienced an influx of local authority tenants.

2018 marked the year of the receipt of the Queens Award for Voluntary Service. Alongside a range of meaningful projects were pushed out in this time for the community benefit. The projects were as follows;

• ~Headstart to Employment —Targeting opportunities for young people aged 16-25 to go into paid employment, further training, or seeking to go onto some form of apprenticeship.
• ~ Volunteer Investment Programme (VlP) Evidence based skills development programme for volunteers who support the work of One Community through volunteering, and in return are supported with a personal development portfolio to help them with their career aspirations.
• ~ RISE Project —Targeting 18+ who are having challenges with accessing the job Market
• ~ Work Club and coffee mornings —Monday drop-in sessions for support with becoming job ready in order to get into paid employment.
• The aforementioned projects were generally for skills development, we had some wellbeing projects too, a few notable ones are;
• ~TLC Project – This project with 6 peer mentors supported 30 vulnerable people, helping to alleviate their feelings of anxiety, stress and worthlessness, improving their mental wellbeing and confidence to move forward included some Therapeutic workshops for up to 20 people for 10 weeks.
• ~ Little Things that Mean A lot – Addressing issues that residents find hard to get help or support with, such as dealing with utility companies, debt agencies, benefit forms etc.
• ~ One Community is a Hate Incident Reporting Centre (HIRC) The One Community shop became a HIRC in October 2017. It also has trained volunteers and staff to collect the information to feed into Thurrock intelligence about Hate Crime in Tilbury by training as Hate Crime Ambassadors.
• ~ New Beginnings Members of the indigenous community engaging with residents from ethnic minority backgrounds to tell their stories of how they came into Tilbury in order to understand one another better.tc

2019 was a continuation of business operations from the previous year, with the addition of a few new things. One such new addition was a new project called HarlowSave Credit Union. This provided an ethical saving scheme and low interest loans for any who should require it. There were also some ad-hoc services added to our provisions which were;

• ~ Begin to allow people to use our shop space on the weekends.
• ~Administrative and secretarial support for smaller groups.
• ~Support starting up small businesses.
• ~Book-keeping services including: Completion of self-assessment tax returns, self employed status registration and investigation of tax refunds.
• ~Job enhancement skills training: Emergency First Aid, Health and Safety, Food Hygiene etc
• ~We also get called upon for assistance with translation for GCSE examinations due to the access we have to different ethnic minority groups and factions within the community.
• ~Fundraising to One Community through running the London Marathon.

In addition the last point, our CEO Yewande partook in the 2019 London Marathon to help raise funds for One Community.

During the start of 2020, the whole world as we knew it took a massive hit, due to the global pandemic we know as Covid-19. As instructed by the government, One Community had to shut its doors for as long as required. But that did not stop us from doing what we love, which is supporting the community in any way we can. We extended our TLC and little things projects to include making calls to people, sending out cards, foodbank vouchers etc to ensure people do not become victims to the blight that is Loneliness, segregation, isolation and being forgotten. Many of our members and clients enjoyed this service. We were able to open later that year, coming out the gate strong and achieving high figures for being closed for a portion of the year.