News
November Video News
14 November
First plot of land in Greenwich, London
Last week we purchased our first plot of land for building houses! This
is in Greenwich and next week this will feature in our November Video
News. The two new Stoke flats are up and running with tenants moved
in and our tenants move into our new Dartford property on 24th
November. We are delighted to be partnering with Dartford Vineyard
Church on this one. Many thanks also to Rob Webb and brothers who
have completed many of the renovations on this home. Bradford and
Pontefract (both 3 bed houses) are due to complete on 22nd
November. Bradford is a new partnership with Hope Housing. We had
a good time at HTB's prison conference on 7th November where we
made a whole range of contacts regarding housing ex-offenders.
Yesterday we met with the Centre for Social Justice to discuss the
many social issues of our nation. We have been offered a coffee shop
in central London and a knocked down rent. Please contact us if you
would be interested in running a coffee shop. In the last week we have
visited our partners in Stoke and Pontefract and our future partners in
Rotherham and Nottingham. It really is a perfect time to purchase
houses, so if anyone wants to take up an opportunity to loan to us
please do go to our invest page above.
October Video News
30 October
Dartford News
Our new partners, Dartford Vineyard Church have come on board.
They will pasotrally support 4 new tenants in Dartford. Volunteers work
on the garden of their new home below.
22 October 2008
Green Pastures partner receives BBC award for helping the homeless
Ernest & Elisabeth Hibbert, who run the Community Awareness Project
in Wakefield have been honoured at the Yorkshire Awards. To watch
their interview go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7681035.stm
21 October 2008
Great progress nationwide in October
Great things have been again happening this month. We have been
able to complete the purchase of another property for Stoke Prison
Chaplaincy. We have met with Flintshire County Council with regards
to the purchase of eight new flats in Holywell, North Wales. This will
come under the guidance of the YMCA. Flintshire are very happy to be
extending our partnership in this way. We have just handed over the
keys of the second property in Dartford.
Pastor Pete Cunningham (Director) and Rory Paget Wilkes (Partnership
and Communications Manager) pose outside the new property above!
We have liased with two churches in Dartford who are interested in
providing pastoral support.
We are now partnering with a church in Bradford and ASSIST in
Sheffield. ASSIST do invaluable work with failed asylum seekers. We
have had an offer accepted for another house in Pontefract. We want to praise God for £28,000 of loans this month which will help our
projects in Rotherham and Sheffield. We have also found partners to
tenant the Brick Layers Arms in Wigan
(www.thebestof.co.uk/wigan/news/19464).
More partners will always mean more investors, please contact us for
any further information.
29th August 2008 NEWS RELEASE
Green Pastures Pastoral Care Department, Southport
A brief sumary of our activities in 2007/8
This year has once again been a year of growth and improvement. We have added 12 new tenants to our listing bringing our total to 183 people that are being cared for in the Southport area. Julie Sinjab has delivered over 4,000 food parcels and now we have three farmers who are giving generously on a weekly basis.
Daniel Tuakli, our pastoral care worker, continues his caseload with Social Services, Probation, CAB, Advocacy, Education, Children and Families, Health Services, Police, Mental Health, ARCH, SMASH etc. These include cases as varied as migrant workers children’s school placement, grant monies for teenagers leaving care, adults with mental health problems, hospitalisation of substance abusers and visitation, re-settlement of young offender and training programmes for ex-offenders. In addition Danny supervised Caroline Price, a third year student on placement from John Moore’s University who worked with us between March and June 2008 08. The University has now appointed us for training placements.
David Nickson has now joined Pam Nickson as a full time worker at our Derby Rd Centre which incorporates an oversight of our London Street properties His addition has helped us to improve our services to the most vulnerable of our community. Financially this has been a leap of faith. Their relationship with the Police CPSO’s has been another plus point in this year. The numbers of people that have been helped with health services, doctors, hospital appointments, dentists, income medical checks, numeracy, literacy, attending to the administration of form filling and appointment making with public bodies are too numerous to count.
Sadly we still have the intrusion of non-tenants who from time to time prey on the vulnerable, this area has improved this year with the appointment of David Nickson and our closer working with other agencies.
We cannot forget the help of volunteers in lifting, shifting and helping people to move in and out of their accommodation. Furthermore, the benefit of the 30cwt Van has been indispensable. Whilst it is old and rickety it is a loyal work-horse.
On the administration we are preparing to move into our new office space in July 2008 which has been provided in Shoreline Church. This will only help us further in the care we are providing. We do maintain close documentation on all our activities in a secure manner but having our own independent office will provide even greater security.
Our thoughts for the future are how to help the people who are receiving benefit back into employment. We are now members of Homeless Link and their North Western agent will be introducing us to the Head of DWP for Merseyside. We are already working with the Southport Manager of DWP and we see the development of an Education and Training Department as an important addition in helping the health and welfare of those we are already working with. The closer working relationship with the Statutory and Voluntary Sectors has been productive through this year and we are planning a meeting of these different groups in the near future to network together to advance our working relationship.