One of the areas of my new role I’m most looking forward to is setting up a food alliance (or partnership) covering Cheshire East. These partnerships are now common place – locally both Cheshire West and Chester and Warrington have one – with around a further 80 covering the length a breadth of the UK.
The Cheshire East Food Alliance (CEFA) is one year old! I’m pleased to report progress... there’s greater cooperation amongst groups leading to food sharing...more projects are benefiting from funding – over £200k in the last round of Cost of Living / Household Support Fund grants alone. But also, from sources including Feeding Britain.
Yet, some things are all too familiar... one I would argue is the overuse of the phrase food poverty...including, sometimes, in describing my role. Is this just masking the real issue - which is poverty?
The Disability Information Bureau (DIB), with support from Community & Voluntary Services Cheshire East (CVS), is delighted to have been awarded £10,000 to deliver its ‘Disability Inclusion, Digitally’ (DID) project through Cheshire East Council’s Cost-of-Living Community Response grant. The funding will allow DIB to offer IT classes supporting individuals experiencing barriers to online learning, to improve their digital skills and access to essential online services during the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
All of us at CVSCE have been deeply saddened and distressed to witness the racism and violence connected to the hatred on our streets over the last week. We stand in solidarity with those individuals and communities who have been targeted, threatened, or otherwise made to feel insecure. There is no place for such behaviour in a modern, democratic society. We will work with communities where we can be helpful to spread powerful, positive information as an attempt to move on from such horrifying scenes.
Visyon and Just Drop-In have been commissioned by Cheshire East Council to provide the Healthy Young Minds Service. As part of this service, we are pleased to announce that we have partnered with Solihull Approach; trusted provider of online courses focused on children's emotional health and wellbeing, to provide FREE online evidence-based courses, developed by psychologists and professionals, for ALL professionals within Cheshire East’s Children’s workforce. These courses can be accessed anytime, anywhere by individual practitioners, at no cost.
