The organization was established to provide a holistic grassroots project delivering a range of services for women, children and families across the Borough of Ards and North Down including the rural peninsula. KWC aim is to reach out to all, to enhance lives, communities by delivering a broad range of support services that will inspire and enable women to improve their life chances, confidence and self-esteem to reach their full potential.
We provide a wide portfolio of programmes, including personal development to promote self-confidence and improve transferable skills, encourage community participation, improve health and wellbeing, and social skills. Education, Training & Employability– providing training and education to enhance economic and social inclusion, develop leadership skills and improve employment prospects. KWC provides a wrap around holistic programme engaging disadvantaged people including older persons to tackle social isolation and age
well, young people and early intervention childcare service, positive physical and emotional wellbeing,
parenting programmes and young women’s initiatives.
The aim of our Elevate project was to further develop a community Wellbeing Drop-in to promote community navigators, supporting marginalised and socially isolated people with wrap around support, childcare and group activities. We engaged with our target audience through community events and group activities and an online health and wellbeing social media campaign. As a result of the programme we have seen an increase in footfall to the well-being drop in with testimonials demonstrating positive outcomes as a result of engagement
We also devised a community needs survey and have disseminated results to all community organisations in the area. We held a celebration event for women and worked collectively sharing resources with outside agencies that are there to support women and families, including Womens Aid, PSNI, Solo Mums.
Our participants participated in co design forums for the organisation that fed into the design for the Elevate project. We have identified a need for empowerment activities for migrant women in the community, which will be taken forward in a future project. As a result of an improved evaluation system we have collected more relevant data that supports us in our mission to drive change for women's health with policy makers.
Some participants of the programme have progressed to volunteering for the organisation. Another participant has progressed from a position of social isolation, anxiety and low aspirations, as a result with her engagement with the project she is now engaging with employability initiatives and applying for part-time work as a result of developing confidence, knowledge and understanding.
“The Elevate programme was instrumental in enhancing our skills in collecting and analysing the social impact we make in the local community. It enabled us to network with other organisations, fostering new connections and re-engaging with existing contacts. The mentoring scheme provided valuable support, allowing us to share ideas and receive feedback, benefiting our organisation”.
