Summing up 2015!

As we reach the end of another year at Arc, we would like to thank you – our clients, friends, participants and users – for your support in helping us to achieve so much over the last twelve months!

Highlights of the year include:

• Tackling Female Genital Mutilation with survivor and lead campaigner Leyla Hussein, thanks to Rosa UK, the Department for Communities and Local Government, LB Newham with Manor Gardens Centre, and schools in LB Havering and Barking & Dagenham who have hosted, funded and participated in our anti-FGM work;

• Being presented with a Department of Health Special Recognition Award at the House of Commons, and Community Group of the Year at the 2015 Barking & Dagenham Women’s Empowerment Awards, for Arc and our Raised Voices girls’ group, funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and LBBD MOPAC;

• Featuring in ‘Stop Cutting Our Girls’ – the new BBC3 TV documentary exploring FGM, produced by Love Productions as a ‘Comic Relief Special’ for Red Nose Day 2015 and presented by actress Zawe Ashton;

• Completing our two-year First World War Centenary project – Our Street: Patriotism and Violence – in partnership with Eastside Community Heritage and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, with a special short film, which can be viewed on YouTube;

• Meeting Her Majesty the Queen at an afternoon reception for specially invited guests, as part of the 50th Anniversary of the joint London Borough of Barking & Dagenham!

In addition to ongoing funding through the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and repeat tours thanks to B&D SNB, Havering SNB, Camden Smarter Travel Team and Barnet EBP, we are also delighted to have been awarded new funding from West Midlands Safer Travel Partnership to deliver our BTP-commissioned Touching Moments sexual offence reporting programme in Birmingham secondary schools as part of Project Empower; funding for a new drama and media project for boys in LB Barking & Dagenham for the London Community Foundation through Red Nose Day; and funding from Seedbed to create a new short-term Community Play project for adults in the Borough.

Check back in the New Year for all the latest news, but in the meantime, on behalf of us all at Arc, we wish you a Merry Christmas – and a very exciting 2016!