ALDI HAWICK

Burnfoot Grows Together will build a Community Garden within the Burnfoot Hub property and support other gardens at Escape Youth Café and Salvation Army. By encouraging and supporting local residents to grow their own we will create more local food sources and will indirectly aim to address food insecurity. Project staff will monitor feedback and link with NHS borders in the formulation of evaluation methodology and research. Within our food sessions we aim to look at food miles and with the encouragement and behaviour change promoted through the cooking of local seasonal produce this will naturally lead to a reduction of food miles. We will look at baselining this at the beginning of the sessions and following completion.

Escape Youth Services is a locality wide youth provision delivering youth work opportunities throughout the Teviot and Liddesdale area of the Scottish Borders to young people aged 9-18. We offer a drop-in facility for young people in the main town of Hawick; set up in direct response to local needs in 2005 and offer additional 1:1 support, groupwork in schools and the community, holiday activity programmes and a variety of skills-based projects. Our vision is to enhance the lives of young people, building a positive future, by developing and sustaining a supportive service where young people can succeed and increasing the range, quantity and quality of youth-led provision. A weekly programme of activities will be developed alongside the young people so that the sessions are as youth led as possible but would include topics such as music, arts, film and media, crafts, cooking, healthy and active lifestyles, life skills and issue-based topics including sexual health, drugs, alcohol, mental health and wellbeing, bullying, online safety and so forth. We operate within the Teviot and Liddesdale area of the Scottish Borders which is a rural area with poor transport links, lack of services and access, and suffers from low wages (20% of the areas children come from low-income families). Of the 22 datazones across the area, 6 are within the lowest 25% of the most deprived areas in Scotland. Through our ongoing work with young people and partner organisations we are aware of the increased number of young people from these areas accessing our service who are in care, young people with additional support needs (autism, ADHD, learning difficulties and disabilities; increased number of young people working with specialist support services, young carers, and families where one or both parents are unemployed due to ill-health or addiction. We are also aware of the number of young people with low school attendance or attainment, involved in anti-social or risk-taking behaviours and are not involved in any other activities within the community. Through our drop-in provision we aim to: Develop resilience through increased self-awareness, confidence and self-esteem; Increase personal, social, life and leadership skills through participation, volunteering and accreditation; Improve citizenship through increased involvement in decision making and community life. We also aim is to continue to develop our on-site allotment, working with young people, staff and volunteers to prepare the site, grow produce and utilise these ingredients in cooking sessions and establish a monthly community lunch club. Gardening activities will be built into existing drop-in sessions and school holiday programmes (April, Summer, Oct), developing knowledge and understanding, skills and confidence.

Our objective is to relieve, promote and protect the health and thereby rehabilitate, leaving and former members of the armed and emergency services affected by physical wounds and injury, post-traumatic stress disorder and psychological issues of disempowerment resulting from service life. In a nutshell: FirstLight Trust exists at a local level to support those who have Served in the armed forces and emergency services who as a result of service life, need personalised help and support to enable positive outcomes on a whole range of circumstances they may be facing including: • homelessness, • emotional, social, financial (including debt and benefits) • work/employment • family and bereavement • issues effecting the elderly such as dementia Our work is underpinned by our local Hubs which in Hawick is based at 1-3 High Street. FirstLight Cafe Hubs are open all day, six days per week as a café and a place for the whole community to access and to come together to help each other. Reducing social isolation and providing health and wellbeing support is a big part of what is delivered. Colleagues serving drinks and cakes within the Hub provide soft support – often a listening ear, socialisation, a cup of tea, play a game of scrabble. This is then enhanced with activities and support which is delivered to give veterans a purpose and to build their confidence. E.g. Gardening, Walking, Model Making, Wellbeing Parcels/ We find this approach enables veterans to build trust, maintain their dignity and come forward and ask for support. Once the support is in place veterans have a purpose again, begin to self-manage and take increased responsibility for their choices and as a result give back to others and their community. We work collaboratively with other organisations as appropriate, sometimes locally and sometimes regionally - depending on the need presented. We work with Social Services, Citizen's Advice, Defence Medical Service, V1P, NHS, and a whole myriad of locally based services - as and when is needed. Neighbourly with the input of Sainsbury, Lidl, and Aldi provide much of what is put within the wellbeing parcels, as do Greggs. This light touch approach enables us to deliver what is often 'unnoticed support' and provides a valued touchpoint for welfare purposes and assists with the cost of living crisis, particularly for families.