Boost Fund Stories: TLC Inverness
TLC Inverness
The Boost Fund is delivered by Corra Foundation and is a partnership between STV Children’s Appeal, Comic Relief, and Corra Foundation, and is supported by players of Postcode Lottery. Boost is currently open to applications and provides small grants for community-led organisations across Scotland supporting local people affected by poverty or disadvantage.
TLC Inverness are based in the Merkinch area of the city, which is in the top 10 most deprived areas in Scotland, and aim to meet some of the needs of local community members, across the generations. I personally have worked in the area for now nearly 20 years and have witnessed lots of groups doing different things – it was kind of ‘yo-yo help’. Organisations and groups would come in, put sticky plasters on things, not actually help the root cause and then go away again. We noticed the negative effect within families in the community and that’s the background on why we started up, to be able to help and aim to make a lasting effect.
All the groups that we’ve started so far have been birthed out of conversation and chat in the community as to what’s happening and what the need is. If there’s something already happening down the road, we wouldn’t do the same thing – we tend to signpost people to things already happening and focus on building niche projects.
The first group we started is called Brew and Blether, where people just come for a cuppa and to meet new friends. We started with 10 people, and now we have consistently about 60 to 70 every week – we almost have a full street of people that come, neighbours that would have waved to each other but now come sit and chat together. There’s tables of people that sit and knit, play dominoes, lots of older ladies that like to just reminisce!
It’s been a real way to escape isolation for some community members. There’s one lady in the community who loves playing dominoes, but she had no friends to play with. She lived by herself, found it very difficult and was very lonely. We approached her and said, ‘If you could play dominoes with somebody, would you come along?’ And she said, ‘Yes!’
It’s that kind of loneliness and isolation that older people are in danger of. For many of them, Covid wasn’t such a long time ago, it really frightened them, and it’s taken them a lot of courage to come out and socialize. So we’ve noticed that offering Brew and Blether has really helped. One lady calls it her safe space and happy place.
We actually applied to Boost for something really practical for our Brew and Blether which was to buy chairs with arms! For older folks that join us, getting up and down is difficult, so to get chairs with arms makes life a bit easier for them and has been really important – making the space more comfortable and accessible.
A few of the community members, for their birthdays, have just asked their family to donate to Brew and Blether, because that’s where they like to go and they don’t want it to stop. So that just kind of melts my heart, it’s lovely.
Brew and Blether was just the start of things and we have since also started up a Mum and Baby group, ‘Baby Bliss’, which then developed on to a separate toddler group. We’ve just done a six week pilot of a group called ‘Threaded Together’, teaching people how to sew and upcycle – the whole sustainability thing and also teaching new skills. And we’re just starting to branch out to work with teenagers now as well.
School stops at midday on a Friday here and a lot of the kids in the area are in real need for a hot meal from Friday – Sunday, as they don’t have anything till they’re back at school on a Monday. It’s just heartbreaking that that’s happening on our doorstep. So we’re looking at ways that we can teach kids how to cook on a budget so that they’ve got food for over the weekend, giving them good skills that are also transferable into the workplace. Instead of just giving them food, instead of just giving them the fish, we want to give them a fishing rod. While we’re working on pulling the project together, we’re doing bits and pieces with some of the teenagers, getting them in and involved with the space. So, that’s a big piece that we’re working on in the immediate future which is exciting!
Huge thanks to Karen from TLC Inverness for chatting to us!
Find out more at Home | TLC Inverness
Interested to apply to Boost? It’s now open to applications at www.corra.scot/grants/boost-fund/
