Starbucks Westminster

Our vision is that everyone has a place to call home and can fulfil their hopes and ambitions. As a homelessness charity and housing association our clients are at the heart of what we do. We provide a bed and support to more than 2,500 people a night who are either homeless or at risk, and work to end homelessness and rebuild lives. We support men and women through more than 250 projects including: •Emergency, hostel and supportive housing projects •Advice services •Specialist physical and mental health services •Skills and work services We believe in our clients' potential. We are committed to every individual's sustainable recover.

We are seeking your support for the 'Dragon Cafe' which started in October 2012 and is a pop up community cafe in Southwark and meets currently at St Peter's Crypt, Liverpool Grove off the Walworth Road, SE17 2HH. It is open every Monday from midday until 7.00pm at night as an innovative, creative space for improving wellbeing, a menu of free activities designed to promote creativity and connectedness, and offering good value vegetarian, nutritious food. Each month a theme is pursued by our freelance curators and a programme of new activities is created together with our regular and much used sessions of Tai Chi, yoga, massage, gardening, singing and dancing. The work of local artists, in keeping with the theme, are shown on the walls of the Dragon Cafe which occupies a large space divided into two, giving us a quiet room and an active room. On average 150 people come through our doors every Monday, the majority of whom have poor mental health. We run the Dragon Cafe each Monday with part time staff and a team of volunteers on rota from a pool of volunteers. The volunteers are drawn from the cafe patrons, as well as other networks, local community mental health teams and South Bank University. The weekly programme adapts and innovates continuously. It pops up once a week to engage, connect and inspire people to help them with their onward journey of recovery through the week and beyond. The Dragon Cafe has creativity at its heart. We train our part time staff and team of volunteers in Mindful Working & Reflective Practice which enables them to support people with mental health issues. Each new person is introduced to the activities and services in the Café and is walked through the two big rooms (one a designated quiet space) meeting the staff, regulars and volunteers. This process allows for observation of their wellbeing as well as a suggested matching of their interests with the arts activities.

Bringing residents in this area with a very high rate of transient population with a social housing estate classed to be in the 20% of the most deprived in the UK living in one of the most affluent area of the country with and high incidence of social and elderly isolation. We have been running Coffee Morning in the community to engage and bring people together. A weekly exercise session to support people to maintain good health and wellbeing. Support people to volunteer for the project as well as other local projects to gain experience work whilst also giving something to the community, making friends a long the way. We want to support a group of people to create a residents association so they are able to be part of the solution not just seen as the problem. We are also trying to create a wider community dialogue between residents, businesses and others to ensure everyone is given a chance to have a say and ensure those less able are not left out of the conversation. So we are planning to hold a series of community engagement called "Meet Your Neighbour". We held our first meeting in April this year based on health and barriers to engagement. We had very good feedback, with many telling us that it is a positive way to encourage those easily intimidated or vulnerable to engage at their own pace, giving them an arena to meet, putting names to faces and becoming comfortable to voice opinion. Overall, it ensures many more people are engaged in the process.