Nottingham City Council

Following 23 community projects delivered across Nottinghamshire through the Community Renewal Fund, including The Old Library in Mansfield and West Nottinghamshire College, we’re now working to renovate 14 community spaces in Nottingham City between January 2023 and March 2025, co-funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). We’ll be helping to improve their usability, enabling them to engage new audiences, offer new and/or improved services and increasing the venues’ confidence for their future sustainability.

All through the VIY experience: supporting local young people*, aged 16-30, who may be unemployed or economically inactive, and at risk of becoming unemployed, to learn trade skills and gain qualifications by engaging them as volunteers on the job.

In addition to our young volunteers, we’re also looking to involve local Community Volunteers to support our projects, to help residents take an active stake in their community and develop ownership and a sense of pride for local places and spaces they currently, or could, use and benefit from.

*Young people are generally referred into us by relevant organisations including local authority youth services, care leaver teams and JobCentre Plus. Please get in touch if you know or work with young people who could benefit from this experience, who live in an NG postcode.

Part-funded by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund

Evolve Nottingham CIC, Strelley

Evolve works across the local neighbourhoods in North Nottingham, a highly deprived area of the city; a local hub of activity to support and provide opportunities for people to help change their own lives. With the help of 23 young volunteers and 5 Community Volunteers, we worked to create a more welcoming space for more people to use from the local community, by repainting the entrance areas, boxing gym and building a brick BBQ so that communities can come together socially over freshly cooked food. Our young volunteers also received careers/jobseeking training whilst on site.

“Our students really enjoyed the project. [VIY Mentors] Kate and Kate were fantastic. They were patient, engaging, supportive and encouraged our students to participate in everything. It was lovely to see our students learn new skills, we saw their confidence grow literally overnight. It is projects like this that are so valuable for them, there is no better way to learn. They all came away buzzing about the experience as most of them have never had the opportunity to do anything like this before, so thank you once again.“

Melanie Kirk, Teacher, Nethergate Academy

Old Basford Community Centre

We worked to brighten up this wonderful community centre, who provide support and spaces for activity for people with disabilities, to offer a more welcoming experience to visitors, both current and new. With the help of local young volunteers, we redecorated the entrances, main room and toilet facilities, as well as building outdoor seating and planters for visitors and staff to enjoy time outdoors.

Queen’s Walk Community Centre

This popular community centre is a vibrant part of the Meadows area of Nottingham, relied on by many in the local community as a space to socialise and run various activities from, including zumba, line dancing, after-school clubs and English language classes. Their tired, dowdy spaces were in dire need of improvement to invite more groups and classes to run from here. With the help of 18 local young volunteers, and 10 volunteers from Johnson&Johnson (above), the rooms have been revived to be fully utilised by the centre. We also created a bespoke refreshment station using kitchen worktops, for members to have refreshments following classes.

“Thank you so much for the opportunity. Jacob got so much from it! All your staff were so good with him and the others. It was not easy to get him there, but on the first day he was proud to take his work high-vis home! His sister told me he had left a note for her to wake him the next day at 8…he’s never done that. So thank you so much… it really was a huge breakthrough for him.“

Simeon Hartwig, Nottingham Education, on behalf of Jacob, 16, VIY Volunteer at Queen’s Walk