About

Much of our work is in raising the profile of Hull’s Community Centres and HFCO’s vision for community organisations has a strong focus around Community Centres as ‘hubs’ and ‘anchors’ for other community groups. Therefore, our work with other community groups is seen in the context of bringing them closer to Community Centres for mutual support.

We believe that Community Centres are at the heart of the community offering the best value for money in the world by allowing people of all ages to work together to:

 

• Reach out to the lonely and isolated
• Bring together diverse groups in the community and therefore promoting cohesion
• Offer accessible and affordable training
• Identify and share skills
• Give people responsibilities, sometimes for the first time in their lives and therefore improving their self-esteem and sense of worth

Community Centres are people-friendly and not bureaucratic. They can respond immediately to needs in the community, faster than any other kind of organisation and more efficiently. They also provide people-centred services that are not available anywhere else. They bring people to services, and services to people.

Community Centres play a strong preventative role, stopping individual and group issues from escalating and therefore preventing the need for statutory services, as well as improving people’s lives. It is difficult to estimate the value of this preventative work, but anecdotal evidence suggests that if Community Centres were withdrawn the financial impact alone would be many times the cost of running the centres. The human impact cannot, of course, be quantified.

Community Centres represent a space where everyone is welcome and valued, ensuring that no-one, whoever they are, needs to feel alone or isolated.