about us all about Community Links
About Us
Community Links is an innovative local charity running 60 community projects in East London, working with 30,000 people each year.
We have over 30 years experience working in one of the most deprived, diverse and vibrant areas in the UK. Almost all our staff live locally and many are former service users. Our work is about far more than numbers, but here are some.
Last year we:
• Ran youth clubs and children’s activities for almost 3,000 young people
• Advised over 12,000 people with benefits, housing and debt problems, helping them claim an extra £1.3m they were entitled to
• Ran the most successful New Deal project in London and the South East, supporting 2000 people into work
• Worked with 120 young people excluded from mainstream education, in our own Community Links school - 90% went on to education, training, or a job.
• Supported 825 young people through our Connexions service
• Convened a network of thousands of people passionate about social change, from around the world.
And those are just the big numbers, scratching the surface. We haven’t mentioned our social enterprises, our groundbreaking campaign on the benefits system, or our farm. Our real success comes from the way we work with individuals – success that’s measured as the individual and the organisation develop and grow, together.
For all the details see our local services and our national work. And to understand where we’re coming from, here are our values:
“To generate change. To tackle causes not symptoms, find solutions not palliatives. To recognise that we need to give as well as to receive and to appreciate that those who experience a problem understand it best. To act local but think global, teach but never stop learning. To distinguish between the diversity that enriches society and the inequalities that diminish it. To grow – but all to build a network not an empire. To be driven by dreams, judged on delivery. To never do things for people but to guide and support, to train and enable, to simply inspire”
This short film outlines some of our work: