Exciting news, Croydon has launched its own Lottery to support the voluntary sector and organizations just like ours.

A chance to win £25,000 and during the draw an additional £300 worth of vouchers are up for grabs.

60% of all proceeds go to the VCS, a much needed income stream after the withdrawal of funding across the Borough

We help people feel more confident and comfortable with technology through classes, workshops and individual support.

We run regular Digital drop-in sessions in Thornton Heath, Purley and Upper Norwood as well as Mobile Phone Boot Camps in Central Croydon and New Addington as well.

We also assist in helping people access online services via a network of Community Hubs across the Borough to help with the Cost of Living Crisis as well as providing access to donated devices.

Finally, we also provide home support to residents referred by local charities and services as well as
providing assistance to disabled people and carers.

We are one of a few organizations that do this critical work full time and the only one based in Croydon.

We regularly support over 60 Croydon residents per week via our programme (500 per year) and is a demand that keeps on rising and so we seek your help to maintain this level of support throughout Croydon.

Please spread the word!

Every Monday from 10, the team are providing Online Services Support alongside other services and groups including Croydon Mind, Age UK Croydon, Croydon Mencap, Housing and St Christophers.

The Community Hub hosted by ARCC Community Facilitators Beena and Nasreen is party of the Croydon VCS response to the cost of living crisis, Covid recovery and of course, rebuilding, after the council’s financial collapse which saw many groups and services lose critical funding.

Lead by Croydon Voluntary Action with central support from One Croydon they have followed a locality model of support creating hubs in the centre of communities where access to support is either inconsistent or where communities are not able to or feel comfortable accessing the historical support available.

Our Online Services Support is a direct precursor to other services such as South London Law Centre, Age UK PIC services or Citizens Advice, where we can help recover accounts, complete forms online and help residents in their ’readiness’ to make an application.

We can also provide information about reducing internet costs, accessing donated devices and social tariffs.

We have previously tested this model working alongside the Healthy Living Platform in Lambeth; supporting residents at the Moorlands Estate as well as in Myatt’s Field North.

We hope to roll this out in other hubs such as in Purely, Woodside and New Addington.

Come and say hi!

Well, well, well, this is something we have been waiting for quite a while.  We have finally delivered our in-person Digital Volunteer Training courtesy of our hosts WLM St Lukes.

A cohort of sixteen people attended the first of 4 monthly sessions exploring the challenges, discussing approaches and looking at some of the techniques we have developed to support people in this area.

These techniques have allowed us to work with over 500 different people in 2022 alone across a range of different projects.

Our person-centred approach puts the learner or resident right in front of the tech. We explore subjects such as active listening, demonstrating vs instructing and, crucial to our approach, how NOT to be the expert and developing helpful interactions.

This sounds all good and proper when you put it like this but fundamentally, we sit with people and work things out with them.

A mixture of existing volunteers, other groups and community connectors all joined to share their experiences which is what really makes the content rich and becomes a learning tool for all involved.

There are still places available for the next session and we will be running the whole course at different locations over the next two years so please get in touch if you’d like to register or are interested in running this for your volunteers.

We recently held our Help for Households event in partnership with the Upper Norwood Library Hub, and over 60 people attended a range of stalls, activities and health support.

We wanted to bring local residents and groups together under one roof in a social and equitable way, sharing food and learning something new.

Its easy to look at barriers and obstacles in hard times and anything that can soften and open relationships scan only be a good thing.

Being quite honest, we have been to too many ‘community events’ over the last ear with the same faces and too few residents. We really wanted to break that deadlock and have some fun.

Very many thanking you to Laura and It’s a Playground, Kim and the Norwood Forum, Sue at Invisible Palace, Danny and the Hive Choir, Kemi at the Paxton Green Timebank and Zen Laughter Yoga.

We are also strongly supported by the fantastic Lambeth Together Health & Wellbeing Bus as well as the South West London ICS

Can’t wait for the next one