About Us
"Our aim is to raise the aspirations of the Redditch communities of Winyates, Church Hill, Matchborough and Woodrow, empowering them with the tools needed to make positive and lasting changes in their lives and in their community."
A Brief History
Back in late 2008, the Worcestershire Partnership agreed a strategic approach to delivering the Local Area Agreement (LAA) in certain parts of the county to meet priorities agreed by central government and the local area. In early 2009 District Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) were invited to submit proposals identifying those areas that would most benefit from the funding available.
Redditch Partnership was the LSP for the town and one of the areas they put forward was Winyates. The proposal for Winyates was accepted and in 2010 the "Winning Winyates" project was born. The project was to be over a period of 5 years.
The Winning Winyates project consisted of a capital investment element and a community engagement element. The capital investment initiative delivered security, environmental and residential improvement work as well as improvement work to the retail units in Winyates Centre. The community engagement element of the project focussed on the Neighbourhood Development Manager (Liz Williams) working to coordinate existing multi-agency work within the area and developing a local delivery network of agencies and community groups to identify and coordinate further work in the Winyates area. In 2012 a Neighbourhood Development Assistant (Chris Thomas) was employed to the project to assist with this.
The overarching aims of the project were to reduce the perceptions of anti-social behaviour, improve health & well-being of residents, improve skills & confidence of residents, and increase wider community involvement, engagement, decision making and problem solving.
As mentioned, the Winning Winyates project ran over a 5 year period and came to an end on the 30th June 2015. To get more of an idea of some of the work the project carried out you can view the end of project report by clicking on the 'view report' button below.
So, what next?
So the Winning Winyates project came to an end but it was felt there was still a great deal of work to not only continue but also to expand upon. So with this in mind it was decided before the end of the Winning Winyates project that we would look to continue the work and expand it to the Redditch areas of Church Hill, Matchborough and Woodrow. To do this we set up our own community interest company and as 1st July 2015, REACH (Redditch East Aspiring Communities Hub) C.I.C began.
The four estates have had varying amounts of intervention work over the last 20 years but this has been in the main, funded over a short term period with no coordinated approach to sustaining or extending the work.
As well as delivering community focused projects and initiatives, we also aim to provide an overarching organisation that can bid for funding based on the expressed needs of the four areas. By combining the knowledge and expertise of community development and training professionals operating in the four communities, we aim to stop the intermittent nature of the funding available and work collaboratively and cooperatively for the benefit of all four areas. By working together we hope to reduce duplication of work and better share resources.
This all feeds into the key undertaking of REACH CIC which is to ensure that funding is used to meet the needs and demands of the local communities it serves. We have four broad areas of coordinated work and activity that all projects and initiatives will fit into. These are;
* Training: Improving Skills & Access to Services
* Additional Support to Schools
(Click on each one to find out more)