Unlocking the potential through Caia Park Partnership
Fair Share Trust’s mission was to build stronger communities by unlocking the potential in areas that had not previously received their ‘fair share’ of lottery funding. Partnering with the Community Foundation in Wales the Fair Share Trust recently completed ten years of strategic high impact grant making. After consultation with local people the trusts priority for Wrexham was to support Asylum Seekers, Refugees, Migrant Workers and Gypsy & Traveller People and their families and their social inclusion into the wider community.
Based in the largest housing estate in Wales, Caia Park Partnership has been addressing the need for support to migrant workers and families in Wrexham for over 15 years.
The speed of the migrant workers’ arrival meant that Caia Park Partnership was the only service in the borough of Wrexham offering support to migrants, due to the limited availability of the local statutory to respond to their needs.
The Partnership provided the migrant workers with vital information, advice and support, with the funding from the Fair Share Trust enabling this service to be offered for free, a necessity for a community who generally has limited incomes. Regular English classes were held, as well as a Drop-In service three days a week offering advice, support, advocacy and translation. In an average quarter, 150 migrant workers were given support.
The funding also went towards a Project Co-ordinator who enabled several new community groups to be established including a multi-cultural women’s group.
The project played a significant part in changing perceptions of migrant workers among the local community. They became rightly recognised as hard working and respectable people, allowing then to be viewed as neighbours, friends and colleagues rather than simply different and separate from the existing Wrexham residents.
Migrant worker communities in Wrexham have now gone on to develop their own support networks and community leaders to offer support to other migrant workers. Through the funding from the Fair Share Trust this project has made a significant and sustained impact on the local community of Wrexham.
