The Power of Impact

Hello, and welcome to The Power of Impact: Stories of a Better Future. In Series One I shall be talking to a range of these leaders, including Cat Ross of Baby Basics, Ruth Rice of Renew Wellbeing, Avril McIntyre of Community Resources to name a few.So subscribe to this podcast from wherever you get your podcasts, and listen out for our weekly instalments, beginning on Tuesday 19th September. 

Joy Wright of UK charity Emerge Advocacy tells the incredible story of her charity which supports young people in hospitals at times of crisis. Emerge Advocacy is a registered charity established in 2016 out of a realisation that young people in A&E because of self-harm need something more. 

Ten years ago, Henry Wilson had a strange dream which woke him up. It was about changing local lives in his local town of Haverhill in Suffolk, so he started out tentatively, giving debt advice. It soon expanded into an organisation which encompasses the whole town, thousands of lives have been affected, and he outlines his key three strategic plans to take REACH Community Projects into the future. 

When Ruth Rice experienced personal meltdown several years ago, part of her response was to set up a shared space where people could come and simply be themselves, without any pressure to perform or even to participate. The charity has become a movement, and has replicated many times in locations across the UK. 

Avril has led several local charities and community projects in the Borough of Barking and Dagenham and beyond. Here, she discusses the nature of community delivery, where the participants are the ones who help to determine the direction of the work.

Tina English describes the passion which drove her to create Embracing Age, a charity which encourages churches to work with care homes to reach out to isolated older people. 

In this episode, Bernice Hardie explains how Wave for Change began, and her passion to see people of all ages and abilities mixing together; when the focus is not on the difference, but on the common ground they all share.