Since our humble beginnings, we have helped to shape a healthier and happier community! LUOS’s successful ‘can do’ attitude was at the heart of everything we have done and thanks to the community we have achieved many important results for our neighbourhood.
Summer 2021 community event film review!
Well Park Lane
With support from the Health Lottery, LUOS set up and ran the Well Park Lane neighbourhood based health and wellbeing community leadership programme
Engaging, motivating and supporting volunteer community leaders to deliver a range of own mini projects ‘for the community and by the community’.
From April 2015 the project went from strength to strength, delivering much more than it set out to do.
Impact & Achievements
- 16 mini community projects were created and delivered including: Nature on My Doorstep, Dynamic Sports Group, Drum for Life, Women Well Within (healthy eating & yoga), Be and Be Seen (Publicity group), Sew for the Future, Women with a Voice, a community knitting group, Young Eagles Dance Academy, Over 55s, Tottenham Ink (creative writing), Wheels of Fortune (cycling), Happy Hair and Head (head massage and hair grooming), the Originals (girls jogging group), NP Arts (a creative arts group) and Organic Love (celebrating growing, cooking and eating healthy food).
- 16 (target 12) Community Well Activators were trained and supported to deliver mini projects.
- 32 (target 12-24) lead volunteers engaged in delivery of the mini projects.
- 272 (target 120) participants regularly attended community mini projects.
- 16 Community “Village Square” events showcasing local achievements.
- Due to its proven track record in community outreach and development, Living Under One Sun Ltd was commissioned by Well London and London Borough of Haringey Public Health to co-host and organise a series of community and stakeholder consultation events in Tottenham, including canvassing 2,500 households.
Blooming Beds and Bees
Blooming Beds and Bees was Living Under One Sun’s heart-warming response to tensions in Tottenham after the riots in 2011.
Residents, young and old and from all walks of life, learnt together and collaborated to create 12 green growing places – bringing nature closer to communities and communities closer together!
A 21-week course trained ‘community champions’ in project management, food growing, horticulture and biodiversity. Volunteers included 28 local residents who became food growers, with 23 trainees also becoming beekeepers, including 4 young people. People from different generations and cultures then joined forces to turn 12 derelict or unused patches of land into beautiful growing spaces – giving several neighbourhoods a positive sense of pride and purpose.
The project also:
- raised residents’ awareness of nature, actively engaging 20 community groups, 7 schools, 2 children’s centres and 2 colleges;
- created a tailored community champions training manual, 3 of whom secured jobs
- celebrated the community’s achievements – including harvesting our first 66 jars of urban honey – at a Blooming Beds and Bees festival, held opposite where the riot took place.
Impact & Achievements
- The project was a finalist in the National Lottery Awards (Environment Category).
- After the project, 43 jobs were created
- After the projects, LUOS went on to successfully develop & deliver community outreach programmes
- The Conservation Trust named Living Under One Sun as Community Group of the Year for 2011/12
Personal Travel Planning (PTP) and promoting Sustainable Transport
LUOS used a high quality community development and leadership approach to recruit and train a team of local residents to reach out to the local Tottenham community in White Hart Lane and Northumberland Park wards
Going door to door, with information about transport options, encouraging greater use of public transport, cycling and walking. The response was very positive – challenging perceptions held in some quarters that cycling and alternatives to the car were likely to be less popular with low income households who aspired only to car ownership.
Impact & Achievements
- 13 local part-time green jobs created
- 3365 motivational conversations held, with 1425 households requesting a range of PTP resources – cycling guiders, walking guides, ‘look out for each other’ leaflets, Greener Driving guides, Active with Ease leaflets and cycle training materials.
- Some members of the team actually changed their own travel behaviour as a result of the project, reducing car journeys, walking more and using safer cycling routes
- Through the project LUOS also contributed to the Lancet Commission Inquiry into ‘Culture, health and well-being’, and to developing transport policy in Haringey, especially with links to the Lea valley.
Active Travel Cycling and Walking Projects
“Walking and Cycling for a Healthy and Closer Communities” and
“Community leadership in Health and Travel”
These projects provided a local safe, supported environment and opportunities to take up walking, to meet others (from both established and newer communities in Tottenham Hale), to learn to cycle as beginners and families, to learn road safety competency, gain certification and to learn how to repair bikes. These activities enabled residents to get out and about, increase their physical activity, reduce social isolation, gain access to and appreciation of nature and green spaces, and increase awareness become aware of and engage with the need to reduce car journeys and carbon emissions.
Impact & Achievements
- 56 cycle training sessions (12 for women only) delivered.
- 46 Dr Bike and bike maintenance sessions delivered and 319 bike repairs completed
- 2 local people qualified as cycle ride instructors.
- 102 residents registered for cycling sessions and repairs, 80% from BME communities.
- 17 women beginners learnt to cycle, 14 of them mothers, with 3 buying second hand bikes and 5 joining long family rides.
- 5 children and 3 youths learnt to cycle for the first time.
- 46 group bike rides completed with 12-15 people on each and an estimated increase of 86 cycle journey per week for 46 weeks.
- 10 residents trained in Personal Travel Planning community outreach.
Neighbourhood Connect Pilot Project
Helping elder residents to access basic services, creates a stronger and more united community
LUOS aimed to test the idea that residents over 50, through encouragement and support to access services and activities, creating access to hard to reach services, can be more connected in their neighbourhoods and become more confident – and less lonely and isolated – with consequent benefits for the community and health and social care services. LUOS developed an innovative model to residents based on Friendship, Food, Fitness, Family and Friends – delivered in a positive, engaging and motivational way by our Neighbourhood Connectors team of local residents.
More than 165 services and community activities for over 50s were mapped by our community team
And more than 2000 residents contact through drop in sessions at libraries and GP clinics, session at sheltered and supported housing schemes, ‘village square’ pop up events, places of worship, on the street and at bus stops through families and neighbours and home visits. Their responses revealed that only 11% felt their health was excellent, only 24% felt fully connected to their neighbourhood, only 14% felt they knew a lot about local services in their area, only 28% felt involved a lot with fun activities, only 21% felt involved in a lot of fitness activities, only 37% felt a lot of connections with family and friends, only 34% felt they got out and about every day, and just 17% with forums and groups in the area, and just 13% knew a lot about free advice services.
Impact & Achievements
Through their positive approach the Neighbourhood Connectors were able to provide:
- 600 Residents received information about neighbourhood services and activities
- 316 of them referred to local services
- 81% of residents felt better about their health and connections after the intervention of the neighbourhood connectors.