Your valuable input is needed to help shape a new leadership development programme for the Oxfordshire voluntary and community sector. The Oxfordshire voluntary and community sector has responded brilliantly to the challenges faced over the past year. Yet this has also placed significant pressure on those stepping forward who themselves need and deserve support.
As of 23rd March 2021, we have given out £1,011,669 in grants to hundreds of grassroots charities and community groups across the county. This also marks one year since the start of the first lockdown in March 2020. We will be here for the local community to support recovery over the long term, whatever happens.
The Age Friendly Banbury partnership is continuing its support for local older people with its Connect! project. The first phase of the project aims to help existing users, who already have access to a device, become more confident. This will enable them to do more – such as shop online, access services, socialise, find information, and connect with friends and families.
Our annual impact report argues that COVID-19 is creating a whole new world – and we must make sure it is one that we want to live in. This is why our work on the priorities identified long before the pandemic has never been more needed.
After the initial shock of lockdown, families taking part in OCF’s Growing Minds early years programme are adapting to the ‘new normal’: social distancing, fewer face-to-face services, and rapid acceleration in the development of online services.
As the fallout of the pandemic becomes apparent, we have made three large grants from our Community Resilience Fund that aim to help local communities recover stronger.
The Westgate Fund was established in 2017 with a £125,000 donation from John Lewis, and is held and managed by Oxfordshire Community Foundation (OCF). Since then it has funded 18 different community initiatives across Oxford.
How can we ensure that no school-age child in Oxfordshire falls further behind due to lack of digital resources? Oxfordshire Community Foundation (OCF) commissioned Oxford University’s Student Consultancy to measure the size of the digital exclusion problem, and consider solutions.
Having made online statistical mapping tool Local Insights freely available in April, we have now updated the data sets and area reports. The latest data is showing the economic impacts of COVID-19 locally.
Following the lockdown of educational and childcare services in March, think tanks and educators alike have predicted the widening of the attainment gap for disadvantaged children. Growing Minds has quickly responded, adapting the project to offer the best support to our families during lockdown, and planning for a more challenging future.