Women and Digital Inclusion – WODIN is awarded a grant by TNL Cost of Living Fund to Support Black communities through the COLC over 6 months.
Responding to the Cost-of-Living Crising, Inflation and what we call the “Syndemic” The Department of Culture and Sports in Collaboration with TNL launched the Cost-of-Living Fund which offered 3rd Sector voluntary organisations 6 months of funding to cover either retrospective costs, an expanded program, or adapt an already existing project.
In other words, 3rd sector organisations have been enabled to stay afloat as many have been struggling with the COLC. WODIN hit the ground running on 14th November with a highly attended event where we talked about the Energy crisis and Housing challenges in Black communities in Liverpool. This support to hard-to-reach communities facing destitution due to the COLC couldn’t have come at a better time. The COLF must be implemented between November 2023 and March 2024.
Women and Digital Inclusion CIC was one of the fortunate organisations to be at the receiving end of this support. We received over 30k as a response to societal needs. This is a funding program that has allowed us to expand our ESpark program. We are now able to extend our Candid fireside conversations with an extra 9 focused expert-facilitated sessions on topics like:
- Financial management in challenging times,
- Energy crisis – how to not have to choose between heating and eating
- Housing and all related issues,
- Mental health at a time like this and more.
Alongside the training, WODIN is expanding its Cultural and ethnic food parcels to black families across Merseyside. Participants in our sessions and more will be able to have meal staple to them courtesy of the TNL Cost of Living Fund. E-Spark Project started as conversations on COLC in January this year. And we at WODIN are so thankful to be the vessel to respond to our communities’ voiced needs.
“We represent black minoritised ethnically diverse women. People struggling on low incomes with various intersectionalities and inequities that make their lives a daily challenge. As an organisation, receiving this funding will enable us to further build on the resilience and capacity we need, to carry on serving in our communities better and wider. We had prayed and hoped to receive this grant in late September 2023 to start implementing it in October. It is still well received in November 2023.
“WODIN CEO has this to say regarding this grant: The families and communities we get to serve a comprehensive food parcel in these cold and uncertain winter months are very much in need of this program. We are able to source foods like yam, plantain, green banana (Matooke), Sweet potatoes, cassava, manioc, ginger, onions, papaya, eba, gari, egusi, Iwiza maize (pap, sadza, posho), cooking oil, sweet beans, green peas, and much more, from as far as Smithfield Market Manchester. People in our communities feel like the powers that be care and that indeed black lives matter in the real sense.”
Funding from the Community Organisations Cost of Living Fund delivered by The National Lottery Community Fund, has helped us to serve our communities in the ways they have asked us to. This is a very important milestone for WODIN because far too many people are finding it a challenge to survive due to the cost-of-living crisis and inflation. We are committed to bringing the change that is much needed in ethnically diverse communities in Merseyside.
Notes to editors
About Women and Digital Inclusion (WODIN)
Liverpool has a highly transient community of Black Immigrants, many asylum seekers, or simply migrants seeking a new life. Over 60% are women and single mothers, who end up in the most deprived neighbourhoods, in less than desirable housing, isolated, poor, or with no access to digital resources to get connected with the community and/or family. They end up in social Isolation and digital poverty. The gap grows with a lack of employment and income to meet their basic needs, including subsistent needs like food. Black women also continue to be underrepresented in the employment and enterprise space.
WODIN’s purpose and hope is to change the above narrative via our activities, events, programs, and message. Our mission is to simplify access to digital resources and tools that are essential for day-to-day living and also simplify the usage of digital resources for Black African immigrant women and their families in Liverpool UK.
About TNL Community Fund
The Government’s Community Organisations Cost of Living Fund is being delivered by The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK. Grants will support charities and community organisations in England at the frontline of dealing with the increase in the cost of living. Thanks to the Government for making this possible.
- X (formerly known as Twitter): @DCMS and @TNLComFund
- Facebook: @dcmsgovuk and @TNLCommunityFund
- Instagram: @dcmsgovuk and @tnlcommunityfund
- LinkedIn: Department for Culture, Media and Sport and The National Lottery Community Fund
Community Organisations Cost of Living Fund – Further information
For further information, images, and interviews please contact Mrs. Sylvia Kalungi at Women and Digital Inclusion (WODIN) at 07879053346 and/or email: syl@wodin.org.uk
