Ne Kongo
West Midlands
News
Community Wellbeing Project Funded!
Ne Kongo West Midlands’ Community Wellbeing Project celebrates after receiving £9462.00 in National Lottery funding
Ne Kongo West Midlands based in Birmingham is celebrating today after being awarded £9462 in funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK.
Ne Kongo West Midlands will use its funding to run a Community Wellbeing Project to support adult people within the Congolese and African diaspora community within Birmingham to increase their social participation for healthier lifestyles, connectedness, and physical and mental wellbeing.
This new National Lottery funding will run sessions where participants among the Congolese and other African French speakers will be invited into social interactions and participate in practical activities to boost their mental and physical wellbeing. A total of 360 people will benefit from this activity starting March 05, 2022, for 12 months. The main aim will be to reduce loneliness, mitigate the impacts of Covid-19 and support community members to navigate uncertainties brought by the pandemic and live healthier lives.
National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. The National Lottery Community Fund distributes a share of this to projects to support people and communities to prosper and thrive. Jean Claude Kabuiku, the Project Officer said: “Thanks to National Lottery players, this grant means that we can improve social participation and reduce loneliness within the hard-to-reach communities, and this will make a big difference to people’s lives.” For more information, please visit www.nekongo-westmidlands.org or email info@nekongo-westmidlands.org.
During the pandemic, in 2020 alone, The National Lottery Community Fund distributed almost £1 billion to charities and community organisations across the UK.
Ne Kongo Monthly Meeting
The General Assembly holds its plenary session, in recurrence, the first Saturday of every month at 3:00 PM GMT. During this meeting chaired by the General Secretary, the participants discuss the agenda set by the Management Committee, in connection with the community welfare updates, the progress of resolution implementation, and the follow up of planned activities.
In case of emergency concerns, such as Constitution amendment, hard financial times, or a situation deemed so critical that we cannot wait until the upcoming meeting date, then the Management Committee may call for an extraordinary meeting out of the monthly occurrence scheme.
At present, an arrangement is set to hold the monthly meetings in the compound of St Vincent Church, on Francis Street, B7 4JU, Nechells in Birmingham, within the slot from 4:00PM till 7:00PM.
April 2021 News
On April 3rd, 2021, a general assembly was held online, thanks to the Zoom application.
This was a maiden approach to get Ne Kongo members together while they were physically separated from each other due to social distancing measures, so they could reflect on their own agenda and still comply with the UK Government's sanitary containment measures following the global outbreak of the COVID -19 Pandemic requirements.
Chaired by Papa Peter Temo [Chairman], 25 members attended this meeting. The participants dealt with short-term projects while tackling other current issues.
Many activities shall resume after the lockdown if the government will stick to the lifting plan. The appeal to help schools in the Kongo Central region of DR Congo still ongoing. The next meeting will be on the 1st May 2021 via Zoom and this until further notice.
