Persian Delights

On Saturday, 8 June, Young Lewisham Project and Southwark Refugee Project are hosting ‘Persian Delights!’ an evening of great food and entertainment including watching a documentary film at the Ackroyd Centre.

Dinner will be a 3 course meal starting with hummus and freshly baked bread, followed by our very own cous-cous massive and then enjoying some fresh pastries with tea and coffee.

Before the food we will be screening ‘Grass’, an incredible documentary about Persian tribal nomads. The epic story follows the journey of 50,000 of the Bakhtiari, a poor nomadic tribe in Iran, as they herd their livestock up snow-covered mountain passes, barefoot to get to the grazing lands on the other side of the mountains before their animals die from hunger. An amazing story from 1925 of human endurance and a community working together.

There will be two screenings of the film, one at 7.15pm and the second at 8.45pm. Tickets for the whole evening, inclusive of food, are £20. They will be available on the evening but if you are planning on attending please send your name, email address, how many of you are coming and which viewing time you would like to dave@younglewisham.org.uk To find out more information about the projects that this event will be benefiting go to: facebook.com/young.lewisham and www.southwarksrp.org/.

Ackroyd Centre

These are exciting times at the Ackroyd Community Centre (Ackroyd Rd, off Brockley Rise, Honor Oak). At the moment, it runs a community nursery, parent and toddler groups and a toy library. But over the next twelve months, it expects to undergo major refurbishment and become a designated Children Centre offering a whole range of services to local children and their families, writes the Centre’s director, Pat Tulloch.

Ackroyd Children & Families in partnership with Ackroyd Community Association and the London Borough of Lewisham is currently considering plans for the refurbishment of the Ackroyd Community Centre as part of Lewisham’s Children Centre Strategy.

The £450k refurbishment programme forms part of phase 2 of the Children Centre Strategy, which will enable Ackroyd Children & Families - a community nursery - to become a designated Children Centre from April 2009. Our particular model is unique because we are based within a community centre and are led by a voluntary management committee many of whom are local parents or live in the local community.

The principle behind Children Centres is that high quality childcare combined with a range of family support services will help raise educational achievement and result in better outcomes for children. Parents and other adults within the community will also benefit from the facilities. As a Children’s Centre, we will provide a programme of holistic services including access to integrated early education, health and family support. For example, we will be developing a parents’ forum and a baby gym from April. We run parent & toddler groups, a toy library, and aim to develop parenting and family learning programmes as well as provide information about children’s services and have benefit and health advisors operating on site

We believe that in order to invest in the wider community we need to first invest in its children and their families. By working in partnership with local schools, health and social care professionals, private and voluntary sector providers, we believe we are better able to build relationships and shape the quality of local services. Dalmain Primary School provides an excellent example of this. It has kindly offered to accommodate us whilst the bulk of the work takes place over the summer. The refurbishment is due to be completed at the end of September.

For further information, please contact Ackroyd Children & Families at 0208-291- 4933