Trailblazers have successfully secured their first ever community space in Woolwich, South-East London. We will be using the space – comprised of a private office room along with larger, shared meeting rooms and bookable events spaces – to set up our first ‘Community Hub’, a place for our mentors and mentees to use, allowing us to deepen the support we can offer young men after their release from prison.

The space is provided by SET, a multifaceted arts and community organisation based in numerous centres across London. SET take over disused buildings that are pigeonholed for redevelopment and repurpose them for use by artists, community groups, activists and charities. They recently obtained a large disused office block in Woolwich that looks over the River Thames and launched two ‘prizes’ to secure space within it, one for artists and one for community groups. Trailblazers was fortunate enough to be one of 15 recipients for the ‘Community Prize’; we will now share a vibrant and eclectic floor with the other recipients which range from contemporary dance collectives to small independent ‘zines’ to an organisation that supports working-class people seeking to enter creative industries.

Coordinated by our Community Support Worker for London, Angus, we initially plan to use the space to meet mentees and mentors, run mentoring sessions and offer drop-in community support ‘hubs’ a couple of days a week where the young men will be able to access computers to search and apply for jobs, housing, benefits and more. Further down the line (and especially as the national lockdown restrictions ease), we also hope to run events and training from the Hub for both mentors and mentees, as well as use it as a space to link up with our community partners to offer a wide range of support including mental health drop-ins, wellbeing and creative workshops, training, and employment guidance. It is also our intention to secure two or three other community spaces elsewhere in London and eventually nationwide, close to our other projects, to ensure the hubs are accessible to as many mentees as possible.

We are hopeful that our community hubs will bolster the support we can offer young men in the community, especially in those crucial early months after release where there are so many challenges, both practical and emotional, to face. Having a physical space will also help our mentees to forge new and deeper relationships with mentors, partner organisations and one another, helping to shift their identity from individual ‘offender’ to ‘citizen’, someone with a stake in a wider community built on an ethos of care and empowerment. Lastly, the hub will be of great benefit to Trailblazers as we continue to forge links with partner organisations forming a strong web of wraparound community support to ease that transition ‘through-the-gate’, a transition made all the more challenging by the pandemic and the strain it has placed on many services.

A huge thank you to SET for accepting our application for community space and a massive congratulations to the other prize winners! We are really excited to begin this new chapter and broaden what Trailblazers can offer to our mentees through the use and development of Community Hubs.