Charities

Newham New Deal Partnership (NDP)
Newham New Deal Partnership in its current form was founded in 2009, emerging from a ten-year New Deal Partnership (NDP) regeneration programme covering parts of West Ham and Plaistow. Setting up the original regeneration partnership owed much to the efforts of local residents putting forward the case to the Council, and their contributions to the management committee during the project’s lifetime.
The legacy of the NDP regeneration programme included projects helping people into employment, and supporting the community towards better health - both were taken over at the end of the NDC programme by the Council and the health authority respectively. Extensive consultation by NDP had also shown the need for community buildings for a variety of uses, and we were able to build these to a high environmental standard.
The Hub and Grassroots community centers are examples of best practice in environmentally sustainable community buildings with low environmental impact, demonstrating early use of heat exchange technology. In 2005, the Hub won a national award for the best public building. I am also proud of NDP’s work in identifying the capital expenditure needs of six schools in the NDP area, and our provision of most of the funding for state-of-the-art buildings and facilities for them – for example, a new Early Years unit, a gymnasium, an extensive music studio, converting a nursery school into a full primary - which has provided support for future generations of local school children. Members of the elected management committee of the successor charity established in 2009 decided to try to maintain the ethos of the original organisation.
Based in one of the NDP buildings, we concentrated on community development, including managing community buildings, and also developed and ran a variety of services for local residents. In 2014 we exited community building management, and now focus on developing people capital, working locally and strategically with stakeholders, including community Trustees, local volunteers, and users, and linking in with communities of interest, including Newham’s Community of Health, other charities and funders.
Our aim now is to effect community cohesion and transformation through delivering high quality volunteer and training opportunities, services to vulnerable and hard to reach groups, place making and the arts projects which inspire communities, enrich society and stimulate people to fulfil their potential. For example, we run the only Befriending & Mentoring Foundation accredited dementia befriending service in Newham. We also embrace technology in our work with older Newham residents, through for example, tablet (iPad) familiarisation sessions and training, and have also piloted tablet technology in reminiscence work with older people with mild cognitive impairment, working with researchers from University College London. We are also active in heritage and Arts activity.
In the financial year 2014-15, we delivered services to 248 Good Neighbours users, with 59 Good Neighbours volunteers. We also had ten heritage volunteers supporting a local heritage project. We intend to develop our services further in response to emerging need, and we may cast our net more widely, geographically.
Written by Fiona Baird, Chief Executive, Newham NDP