Community cafes: The third spaces we love and need  

Community cafes: The third spaces we love and need Do you have a friend who Grew up speaking a different language?  Celebrates different religious holidays?  Grew up with less money than you?  Was born in a different decade to you?  Whose skin is a different colour?  If you answered yes

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Tracy’s story

My name is Tracey, I’m 44 years old. I come regularly to Hay Hall Building n Tysesley to the lunch club group where I meet up with a wide range of people and backgrounds. We all sit around have some food and drink together and a chat and a walk

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Community Meals Partnership

The Food Justice Network (FJN) is launching a new Community Meals Partnership. We want to use food to build networks and strengthen communities. Great things can happen when people sit down to eat together. Sharing meals can break down barriers, introduce people to new experiences, overcome loneliness and even support

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The Active Wellbeing Society Update March 2024

From the 1st of April 2024, the operating model of the Active Wellbeing Society will be different, in a move designed to allow us some lead in time to mitigate some of the potential reductions that we expect to see in 2025/26 in light of the recent Birmingham City Council

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Shaana’s Story

Shaana Derry was introduced to the Share Shack by a friend, she says before that she didn’t know it was there. After going in she began doing the Memory Art class with Joe, which runs every week on a Wednesday from 11-4. There Shaana started to make things, a large

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A group of women taking part in the 2023 flash mob in Birmingham City Centre.

One Billion Rising Flash Mob

The Active Wellbeing Society and women’s charity WE:ARE will be joining the One Billion Rising Movement once again, with a flash mob in Birmingham City Centre. This year’s event is at 1pm on the 14th of February on the section of the High Street between Union Street and New Street.

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Can Birmingham Businesses Help Brum Bite Back?

Brum Bites Back! is the new campaign from the Food Justice Network (FJN). We want everyone in Birmingham to have access to food, and we’re asking citizens and businesses to help us in that aim, and bite back at food insecurity. We know Birmingham is home to hundreds of successful

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Join the Virtual Community!

We know this time of the year many people will start a new exercise kick, determined to get in the gym and shed those extra lbs. But we also know that for a sizeable proportion that resolution doesn’t stick. It’s too hard, or cold, or inconvenient, or it simply doesn’t

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Pull up a chair

Pull up a seat Every Monday at the Meridian Centre you’ll find people doing chair-based exercise to 80s and 90s music. Open to all patients within the Primary Care Network, this session is there for people with long-term health conditions. After the session, the group who set out on their

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TAWS Christmas Closure

The Active Wellbeing Society is closing over the period 22nd December 2023 to 1st  January 2024 inclusive, for staff to rest and recharge at the end of the year. We will re-open on 2nd January 2024. While we are closed, alternative support with food and wellbeing is available.  Find information

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Brum Bites Back!

The Food Justice Network (FJN) is launching a very special campaign, Brum Bites Back today (11th Dec.)! We’re asking the people of Birmingham to bite back at food injustice in three simple ways – to host, give or share. Here’s how you can get involved. Host: We’d love you host

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Sustainability Sunday – starting and ending with community

The Active Wellbeing Society (TAWS) has been visiting the Warehouse Café in Digbeth once a month for this year’s Sustainability Sunday programme. We’ve worked with Birmingham Friends of the Earth and ecobirmingham throughout and had different themes each month, including Active Travel in June, Sharing in July, Food and Growing

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Together we can improve the air we breathe 

People in Birmingham are breathing air that the World Health Organisation classes as unsafe for human health. What can you do about an invisible problem, which has many causes and needs as many solutions? The Birmingham Clean Air Community Conference, co-hosted by the Clean Air Justice Network and Asthma +

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Prime Minister sees the benefits of free bikes

There was a surprise visit for our team in Essex yesterday (18/10/2023) when the Prime Minister arrived to see the work being done by Essex Pedal Power (EPP), as part of a day exploring the impact of levelling up funding in the area. EPP, which The Active Wellbeing Society is

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Lorraine on her bike with a man standing next to her smiling.

Lorraine’s Story

Lorraine is taking on a massive challenge.  Lorraine is 60 and lives in Basildon in Essex, she retired two years ago and now fills her time volunteering in her local community. Lorraine’s been using her car to get about but recently received a free bike through Essex Pedal Power, a

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Gold for Acock’s Green in Bloom!

Acocks’s Green has received a gold award from the Britain in Bloom campaign, and a garden that we’ve been working on played a part! The site, at the Victoria Road surgery was overgrown and neglected, but our staff, alongside a team of patient volunteers have cultivated it, it now has

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Share Shack

Recycling Week at the Share Shacks

This recycling week (October 16th-22nd) we’re remembering recycling doesn’t just mean putting the bins out once a fortnight, it could be giving new life to a board game that’s been forgotten, or passing on a lawn-mower that’s no longer needed. Maybe, finding a home for those things that might be

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