Sainsbury's Coleraine

The advancement of citizenship or community development

We are a community organisation in one of the largest housing estates in the Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council area, comprising of over 3000 residents. Ballysally is a marginalised, impoverished, and disadvantaged community, ranking within the top 3.5% of the most deprived areas in Northern Ireland according to the NI Deprivation Measure 2017. There are high levels of benefit dependency, low levels of income, low levels of unemployment and health inequalities are very apparent. Our organisation is in the heart of the community and is easily accessible for all our residents. We have a clear and concise understanding of the needs, wants and issues faced within our local community such as social isolation, deprivation, poverty, unemployment, and poor educational achievements. Therefore, we wish to ultimately relieve these and promote the benefits of the residents within our community. We enable this to happen by continuously having a high presence within the community and working with other voluntary and statutory organisations in the area. By having these relationships, it enables our organisation to tackle ongoing issues, improve services without duplication and improve living conditions within our community. Furthermore, as a community organisation we also provide projects, events, and training to target the needs and wants of those within our community, bring light relief, entertainment, company, and enjoyment back into the lives of our residents. These are provided at a minimal cost or free of charge to our residents to ensure there are no barriers in place for accessibility whilst being able to reduce social isolation, promote community cohesion and increase individuals’ self-esteem. In our community organisation we have a healthy eating café which acts as a social hub for our community and any profit made then feeds back into the local community for projects/events. This café is a popular service as it provides a varied healthy menu at a low affordable cost. It is important that we continue to keep our prices low. This café also acts as a recruitment source/advertisement for the other projects and events that are available within the community hub such as various different training opportunities, events, and projects. One other service that we provide to our community and that is used by many individuals is our food bank. We receive in-date healthy food from fareshare and also donations from local churches to be able to carry out this service. We have recognised over the last few months more residents are making use of this service due to the struggles from the cost-of-living crisis. Families are finding it more difficult to make finances stretch and we help to provide healthy food to make sure that families do not have to choose between heating or eating. It is important that we continuously find sources to help us provide this service.

Vineyard Compassion is a charity that provides people with practical and emotional support at their point of need while empowering them to tackle the underlying root causes.