London Plus has recently launched a new project which will support the Arts, Cultural, and Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sectors to identify and communicate the impact of creative health activities.
In this blog, find out more about one of the organisations involved in this project – Coco Collective.
What does Coco Collective do?
Coco Collective is an Afro-diaspora led grassroots organisation, rooted in heritage esteem to provide safe spaces to connect, learn, heal and grow. It is delivered through culturally appropriate community events, food growing, workshops & research projects.
What are the values of your organisation?
Where rematriation – a return to spiritual values and honouring Mother Earth – is normalised and synchronised to everyday living.
How do you make a difference to people’s wellbeing?
We run weekly mental wellbeing sessions, connecting with statutory services to provide culturally appropriate pathways for the most vulnerable within our community. Our workshops span food growing, arts and crafts, an outdoor film screening on climate activism, and outdoor exercise for intergenerational communities.
Which communities do you work with to tackle health inequalities?
We work with black and racialised communities.
Is there a project or initiative that you are particularly proud of?
We have recently been funded to explore the viability of a race equity kite mark by City Bridge Foundation. This will help us build better tools for developing culturally appropriate services, decolonise and therefore navigate the funding system. The aim of this is to empower black and racialised communities to prosper in a way we see fit for our communities.
Why did you decide to get involved in our Creative Health Impact project?
We run a culturally appropriate service, considering we are the first black led community garden in the borough of Lewisham, and have experienced the bottlenecks in partnering with statutory services, receiving sufficient funding to build capacity, and expanding our reach to the most vulnerable within our target groups.
We wanted to explore how we can find solutions to these topics alongside members of statutory services.
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Creative health project: Find out more
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