Better Together

Barca-Leeds have been proudly delivering the Better Together project in West Leeds since April 2017. The Better Together team are focused on enabling community members to reach their full potential and to improve their health and wellbeing.

We run several community groups in West Leeds, including Conversational English clubs, walking groups, parents, arts and crafts sessions, yoga and cooking groups. You’ll also find us at community events and venues promoting local health and wellbeing campaigns and services, and connecting with community members to inform them of the groups that we deliver.

Better Together is for adults living in the most deprived areas of West Leeds. These areas include:

• Armley
• Bramley
• Burley
• Hyde Park
• Little London
• New Wortley
• Woodhouse
• Kirkstall
• Farnley
• Hawksworth

What we offer

We deliver free community health and wellbeing groups open to all adults in West Leeds. Our current activities include:

• West Leeds Recipe Station - Recipe Station was set up by the Better Together team at Barca-Leeds in 2019. After being inspired by home cooking boxes we wanted to facilitate healthy cooking at home but on a budget! We create free recipe bags with a recipe card and ingredients to cook a healthy meal where the ingredients cost in the region of £2 to recreate.
• SEND Peer Support Group for parents and carers
• Pay as you feel Yoga sessions
• Creative activities including sewing, crafts and mindful colouring
• English Conversaiton Cafe - a friendly and welcoming space to practice your English conversation, socialise and meet friends.

For our latest information, please download our activities timetable below or follow our Facebook page where we share regular updates about our groups and activities. You can also email us if you have any queries or want to book onto a group.

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Making a difference: Talk English Group

Before lockdown, our Talk English group in Little London met twice a week. The members of the group joined Talk English in December 2017 and in January 2018 they started to train as Community Health Educators.

Upon completion of the course, the members started to support the running of the Talk English group and subsequently, a Breakfast Club at Little London Community Centre. We gradually increased their responsibilities and they are now confident running the group with regular check-ins from our team. Two members of the group have now been trained by Path Yorkshire to deliver the sessions.

We have also supported women in the community to form an Arabic Society and helped it become a local institution.

We have also supported women in the community to form an Arabic Society and helped it become a local institution. They have been able to access £4,000 of funding to run family focused activities in the Little London Community Centre. The group plan on running a Friday teatime group for families to support each other with their children’s homework, in order to help other parents who cannot read English and therefore struggle to support their children’s education. Older children with better English literacy will also be encouraged to support younger children with homework in these sessions.

The society has recently applied for funding to host a wellbeing day which we will support them to deliver, if the funding application is successful. We will still continue to support the group as best we can in these unprecedented times.

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Our team

The project is delivered by a small team of friendly Community Engagement Workers.

Kiran Soor is the Service Manager for Better Together. For more information about the project, please email Kiran on Kiran.Soor@barca-leeds.org

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