London and Quadrant Housing Trust with Metropolitan Housing Trust: 2007 Gold Award winner

About L&Q and MHT
A joint initiative by London and Quadrant and Metropolitan Housing Trust, the Reaching Out project was launched in 2002 in Edmonton, north London, to increase service use and community participation among the Kurdish/Turkish community. The independent Kurdish and Turkish Residents Association (KATRE), which now works across the London boroughs of Enfield and Haringey, has grown from this scheme, which wins a Gold Award for “addressing the needs of diverse communities and harder to reach people and groups”.

The award-winning project
Reaching Out is part of an £87 million joint regeneration programme by the two associations in Edmonton Green that delivered more than 700 new homes and refurbished a further 600. However, both associations saw physical regeneration as only part of their task and set up Reaching Out to work with the local Kurdish and Turkish community, which account for 10% of the population of the London Borough of Enfield and have difficulties gaining access to education, health care, housing and other services.

 A Turkish outreach worker was appointed to work with the community to address its concerns, all of which are compounded by language barriers. Reaching Out offers a range of services, among them drop-in sessions and monthly public information meetings on health, education, community safety and other issues. It publishes a quarterly Turkish-language newspaper, runs weekly English-language courses with the help of Enfield College and supports a homework club with 118 young people on the register. More than 200 people are involved in the project and nearly 1,000 people have used its services.

Setting up KATRE, which has five Kurdish and Turkish residents on its board and is a registered charity, has ensured community ownership of project. Funding of more than £120,000 into the project in cash and officer time by the two associations has levered in a further £323,000 of government, Big Lottery, European and local business funding. KATRE also generates income from a local food co-operative it has set up.

The work is supported by a network of partners, including the local authority, MIND (Enfield), the local primary care trust, the Enfield Arts Partnership, the Metropolitan Police and the Capel Manor Horticultural College.

Positive results are flowing from the partners’ efforts: 60 residents have completed language courses, volunteers from the project work as classroom assistants and one is a school governor. KASTRE’s Chair has completed her training for the Community Leadership Award. Significantly, Enfield has received its first objection by a Turkish resident to a planning proposal.

An “excellent and exemplary scheme”, said the judges.

Further information
Visit London and Quadrant Housing Trust's website or Metropolitan Housing Trust's website for further information about the associations.