Over the last three years, we have been undertaking community development support work with some of the largest and newly settled communities in the borough, namely African French-speaking, Sierra Leonean and Latin American communities. The work involves engaging these communities, undertaking community surveys to establish their needs, as well as working with community members in finding ways of alleviating those needs.

Support available

Support to migrant communities includes

• Strengthening / developing their capacities – through provision of information and advice
• Promoting community actions to address their own needs – through provision of capacity building support
• Encouraging them to seek unified representation for their communities - through establishing community forums
• Enabling them to participate in local decision making processes – through provision of capacity building support, training, etc.
• Facilitating access to existing mainstream services – through referrals and signposting, as well as
• Providing them with generic advocacy support – through representation, lobbying and campaigning activities.

Achievements to date

To date, we have been able to conduct effective outreach programmes bringing community members together, establish community networks and forums, organise community events for improved community cohesion, as well as achieving tangible improvements in areas such as information provision, access to some mainstream services, and business, employment and training support.

African Francophone communities

Following on Southwark Council - Community Involvement and Development Unit’s survey and report on the needs of African francophone communities, we were commissioned to continue community engagement and development with African French-speakers in Southwark for a further 12 months.

Full report available for download

For more information about our community development work, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .