buildING power and capacity at the heart of communities

Lead: Zahra

We have established a community support group for newly arrived refugees and asylum seekers, tackling the issue of language justice where refugees and asylum seekers are denied funding to access English language support in their first six months in country.

This work provides peer support and community, access to English language education, and cultural integration support. Through strong links with the migrant hotels and local services we engage learning and support from the moment people arrive in Gateshead, providing safety, sanctuary, friendship and language aquistion skills.

In collaboration with Gem Arts and The Gateshead Libraries, we hold a weekly “Homework Club” that allows young people to gather safely and have support with their school work.

By gathering young people regularly in a safe space we create a network of support as well as opportunities to be able to discuss complex topics such as County Lines, Gangs and attitudes to racism, sexism and LQBTQ+ awareness.

All of this with Zahra’s infinite amount of care, compassion and humour.

Lead: Christine

We’ve been running an inquiry exploring devolved decision-making on a community level. In this work, a pot of funding is made available to the communities of Teams and Dunston and, through a facilitated process, the community decides what it wanted to invest in to benefit the area.

Lead: Hakan

We’ve funded the expansion of a Saturday School for the children of asylum seekers and refugees, where they can get supplementary schooling to bolster what they are learning in mainstream education as well as learning about, sharing and celebrating their cultures.

This began as a gathering in the living room of some of the Turkish Communtiy and it now has 34 teahers and 98 pupils.

The charity NEDED was developed to support education and interfaith dialogue in Gateshead

https://nedes.org.uk/

Lead: Rich

We’ve set up three groups, one focusing on asylum seekers and refugees, one on mental health, and one on young people. These peer-led groups focus on the experiences and barriers people are facing. There are currently 26 engaged participants in these groups. The onus is on ‘taking things slow, and letting them grow’, so we prioritise working relationally and building trust. The groups meet most weeks, sometimes simply to run fun activities and support one another, and other times to hold discussion spaces that aim to uncover intractable, difficult to see issues and patterns that can act as barriers to a good life. The groups can then be resourced and supported to develop actions around the issues they have experienced.

Lead: Paul

We’re conducting work looking into the support available to d/Deaf people living in Gateshead, uncovering issues from isolation to aspiration, exploring issues that cut across demographics, such as deafness and dementia, grief, loss and non verbal communication.

The Wey Aye Festival is a bi annual festival run by and for deaf people that seeks not only to use the arts to gather and grow relationships, but also looks at digging into the root causes of inequality in the d/Deaf world. Gathring the team and regularly upskilling through training and mentoring has led to new positions being created in local businesses for d/Deaf and hard of hearing communtiy members, including our Bridgebuilders Paul and Christine!!

https://weyayedeaf.org.uk/

The next festival in being planned for November 2026, alongside a whole host of other community outreach projects led throughout Gateshead.

Lead: Eric

This work connects newly arriving migrants to other migrants through sport, in partnership with the African Platform. Isolation and loneliness is a key issue in migrant communities, especially when people first arrive to the area and don’t have any existing networks of support and friendship.

Eric’s role is to signpost, support and to work alongside services to uncover the barriers that the community is facing.

The project’s main focus is therefore to foster stronger connections in local communities, through football and other sporting activities.

What started as a small group for men is now a large African platform comprising communities from 13 African Nations. Devolution of decision making and trouble shooting the important work of building strong safe networks is a core goal.

The network now has expanded to a group of female decision makers and young people who are learning about power and how to create change for themselves through the provision of art and sports activities.

Throughout 2024 and 2025, Damien Wooten followed the Gateshead Community Bridgebuilders on their journey of relational social change.

https://www.damienwootten.com/community

The result was not only a wonderful exhibition called “LOOK!” of photos documenting local peoples stories and lives, but a much deeper and richer unintended outcome unfolded.

As Damien interacted with the local people he was able, through teaching photography to the groups, to open up their questioning and understanding of stigma around race, poverty, sexual identity and to many more topics that communities very often cant relate.

We realised the power of the images Damien was collecting. They were influencing conversations about the riots in summer 2024, the flags put up on lamp -posts and roundabouts and refugees and asylum seekers.

Hate Crime Awareness Week in October 2025 was marked by part of this project being displayed at The Civic Centre alongside a meeting of the local councillors who will meet with the Bridge Builders and other charities and services to address concerns around hate crime in Gateshead.

https://ourgateshead.org/things-to-do/finding-neuro-neurodiverse-community-space