We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Coronavirus Community Support Fund, distributed by the National Lottery Community Fund, for funding the Building4Better Project. The goal of this project is to provide support to vulnerable African BMEs based in Surrey who have been affected by Covid – 19 to improve their quality of life. When the lockdown was imposed, Be My Hope had no choice but to terminate all of its services as we used the conventional approach of providing face-to-face services: emotional support, therapy sessions, benefit advice and peer support groups. In such a difficult time, our people were left stuck with nowhere else to go for help, as this pandemic had greatly changed the way in which we delivered services to people within our society. Build4Better aims to restore all of our services to provide phone-based and virtual platforms where we can safely provide emotional support, therapy sessions, virtual support groups, and remain an information contact point for every Black-African and Minority ethnic person across Surrey. We also recognise the emotional, social and financial effect this pandemic has had on every Black-African person across Surrey. We have been addressing some of these concerns with the Build4Better Project by educating community ambassadors to become community mental health and well-being advocates, offering guidance and assistance for those who are financially struggling, as well as emotional support and therapy sessions.
We believe that "Every Hope has a Story" and Building4Better Project is reconstructing a foundation for how we provide our services to encourage a fresh start across Surrey for a better Black-African and Minority Ethnic society.