Connecting with a harder to reach community

A joint initiative between London & Quadrant Housing Trust and Metropolitan Housing Trust (MHT) won an award for its work with the Kurdish and Turkish community in Edmonton, north London.

The Reaching Out project won the Housing Corporation Gold Award 2007 for ‘addressing the needs of diverse communities and harder to reach people and groups’.

Reaching Out is part of an £87 million regeneration programme by L&Q and MHT that has delivered over 700 new homes and refurbished a further 600 in Edmonton Green. However, both associations saw physical regeneration as only part of their task. Many people in the local Kurdish and Turkish community faced difficulties, compounded by language barriers, in accessing education, health care, housing and other services. L&Q and MHT set up Reaching Out to increase service use and community participation within this community.

Halit Firat, a Turkish outreach worker, was appointed to work with the community to address its concerns. The independent Kurdish and Turkish Residents Association (KATRE), a registered charity with five Kurdish and Turkish residents on its board, was set up to ensure community ownership of the project.

Reaching Out offers services including drop-in sessions and monthly public information meetings. It publishes a quarterly Turkish-language newspaper, runs weekly English-language courses with the help of Enfield College and supports a homework club.

Funding of over £120,000 in cash and officer time by the two associations has levered in a further £323,000 of Government, Big Lottery, European and local business funding. KATRE, which now works across the London Boroughs of Enfield and Haringey, also generates income from a local food co-operative it has set up.

Outreach worker Halit says: “Nearly 1,000 people have used Reaching Out’s services. Sixty residents have completed language courses, volunteers from our project work as classroom assistants and one is even a school governor. It shows what can be achieved when a housing association works closely with its community.”

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