It’s been another tough year...there's no denying that,
but we have so much to thank God for!
Great thanks to our dedicated staff, volunteers, supporters, regular givers, and funders who have stuck with us in it and through it all!
We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts!
For the first 6 months of 2021 we continued supporting our Oasis community, local residents, schools, Churches, charities, hotels housing our homeless communities and care homes with 3 support programmes: Crisis support, Emergency food and Education & well-being support. We have been a daily lifeline to hundreds of people giving many a reason to get up in the morning, but we have experienced the most challenging year ever, and our East Manchester community have been hit hard. People already struggling with complex needs, have been pushed to their limits. We have seen our community lose so much in the past year: family members, health, jobs and homes. Many people have also come to us for the first time, having lost their jobs through lockdown and finding themselves in crisis. Our emergency food provision has soared, and crisis support has become a central part of what we do.
In the first 6 months of 2021: 1,376 crisis support issues were addressed for people in need, 1,644 emergency food packs were given to people suffering food poverty, 1,615 education and well-being packs were posted out and 491 well-being phone calls were given to those struggling with isolation.
On 19th July 2021 we opened our doors to our amazing and diverse communities! It was obvious on day one that our community were struggling to cope. People were feeling anxious and had lost confidence. Sadly, there were many stories of shocking isolation, depression, self-medication, lack of purpose and fear throughout lockdown. This was anticipated, so, we decided to spend the first 6 weeks helping people re-adjust back into the new 'normal' focusing on building friendship and trust through extended converstions, eating together and having fun in our free cafe. Through simple well-being activities and games, we started to see laughter and confidence grow and eagerness to venture upstairs to our new purpose-built education rooms, I.T and work club suite. Our crisis support workers got straight back to work in their brand new room with dedicated emergency food pantry.
In the second 6 months of 2021: we had a footfall of 5,931 with 650 individual people supported, 515 new people started using our services for the first time, 2,963 crisis issues were dealt with, over 5,500 free hot meals were served, over 7,000 items were sold in our budget charity shop, 154 people engaged in our basic adult education programme with 2 educational trips, 92 people were supported through our IT and Work Club programme, 18 clients enrolled onto our Next Step programme, 14 people found employment and we welcomed 249 separate visits from outside health and support agencies.
In September we opened on Fridays enabling us to care for our community 5 days a week! In October we launched our Friday Feasts celebrating and embracing our multi-cultural community. In December 69 people received certificates at our Education Awards Ceremony, 102 people enjoyed our annual Christmas party with a Christmas meal and a selection of presents. We hosted a Carol concert with our very own Oasis Choir in partnership with the wonderful Halle!
Back in September we also celebrated our 20th Anniversary where we invited our loyal supporters, regular givers, and funders to a week-long open day celebration. For those of you who were not able to make it and for those of you who would like a reminder! Please click on the link below to see what we got up to: