Glasgow The Caring City

Martha, a single mother from Glasgow was struggling to make ends meet and was evicted from her home due to social and economic circumstances. Through council services, she was able to find another home but it was largely unfurnished with little means of providing for her children.

Glasgow the Caring City stepped in with their Sofa-Cycle initiative, where unwanted furniture and kitchen accessories are collected from people's homes across Glasgow and either recycled or redistributed to those in need.

Martha found this initiative while searching online in her local library and called Glasgow the Caring City for help. The next day, she received basic furnishing, several cooking accessories, essential products and some toys for the kid. Martha is now back on her feet and established in her own home.

Martha doesn't need a hand out, she needs a hand-up. That's when our work becomes vital.

At just 8 years old, Imani lost everything. He was abducted by a rebel army, taken away from his family and forced to fight in Sudan's bloody and violent Civil War. When the war ended in 2005, he was abandoned, left to fend for himself with no one to look after him.

Luckily for Imani, Glasgow the Caring City's 'Matthew's farm' project was there to support children like him and other young people at risk with the education and skills to grow their own crops.

Imani began attending open classes on Matthew's Farm, where he was taught all the skills he needed to become fully self-sufficient farmer and traditional skills of reading, writing and numbers. Today, he is 15 years old, helping both himself and young people like him to overcome their trauma and begin a new family life.

The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami which hit Sri Lanka resulted in one of the most severe humanitarian catastrophes of modern times. Glasgow the Caring City was determined not only to help those in the most desperate need with short term projects but also to help establish more medium to long term projects which would help fuel social enterprise in a country that even before the tsunami was in much need of international aid. Sustainable not-for-profit local enterprise is a good model of continued community security which maximizes local benefits whilst also minimizing the demand for continued third-party involvement.

In partnership with local community members, we successfully launched shops, hotel and restaurants enabling local enterprise and regeneration to commence. Further investments in the fishing and transport industry were also successful. These results meant that now families can look to build towards a more prosperous future and start to move away from the grief and tragedy which must have seemed so inescapable in the months which followed that fateful December day.

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