Last week, we were honoured to be recognised by the Asian Business Chamber of Commerce as their Outstanding Charity of the Year – and to our even greater surprise, their Overall Business of the Year.
The last 2 years have been significantly challenging for the communities we serve. During this time, we’ve worked hard to show up and pitch in – standing shoulder to shoulder with citizens, communities and partners.
In March 2020, when the first lockdown restrictions were announced, we changed our delivery overnight and began working with partners to coordinate a citywide emergency response. As supermarket shelves emptied and many services shut their doors, The Active Wellbeing Society was there to help people access the support they needed. Working with partners, we created the campaign #BrumTogether – which provided:
- 200,000 emergency food parcels
- 50,000 hot meals
- 6,000 tonnes of clothing, to 2,300 people
- 15,000 phone calls, supporting 5,500 people, and
- 1,203 Virtual Wellbeing sessions
We were supported to do this by our existing funders (including Sport England, Birmingham City Council and Our Health Partnership) along with some new ones (e.g., National Lottery Community Fund, DEFRA, BVSC) who understood the need to be flexible and brave in the face of uncertainty.
We’ve built some incredible partnerships over the last year and work together to achieve significant system change and impact. We’re proud that we are able to play our part in supporting partners across the city to access resources and opportunities for their communities – from coordinating the city’s community food response, to providing administrative support and capacity, to bridging the gap between voluntary and statutory services. We are also grateful for the generosity and support of our partners and the hundreds of volunteers work worked with us, without whom we would never have been able to achieve the incredible reach and impact we have.
Our work in Birmingham over the last 2 years has been recognised nationally, and across Europe, as best practice in system leadership and wellbeing. And now, we’re bedding in the learning from our emergency response, as we work towards a just recovery
Find out more about our work in our Impact & Interventions report.
You can donate to support our work via JustGiving.
