In 2011, the staff at Equity Solutions raised in excess of £2,500 for the Helping Hands Trust which has allowed us to continue to support the Shangri-La Children’s Home in Nepal for orphaned and abandoned kids.  The Trust has been able to offer another year of vocational training for the children at the home, giving them essential skills in fields such as tailoring, electronics, design and mechanics to gain an insight into future careers.

We were also able to fund an extension to the home which enabled four more children to be accommodated in the building and get a chance at a better life. Also, some of the Equity Solutions staff are now sponsoring the children at the home individually to ensure they are provided for.

The Equity Solutions staff also contributed cash to buy gifts for the Shangri-La children at Christmas. As a primarily Hindu/Buddhist country, Nepal doesn’t traditionally make a celebration of Christmas day but the staff at Shangri-La wanted to introduce the different cultural beliefs around Christmas to the children. It has quickly become a tradition for the children to decorate the tree in the back garden, and learn about Christian traditions on this day of the year. They especially love the games they get to play!

The Helping Hands Trust also supports numerous causes here in the UK. In 2011 we helped a number of children from disadvantaged backgrounds in education and in the coming year we’ll be looking to make donations to more worthy causes.

For more information on the work of the Helping Helping Hands Trust or to make a donation please visit us online at http://www.helpinghandstrust.org.uk/

The initiative is run by StreetGames, a national charity dedicated to developing doorstep sport in disadvantaged communities and Community 1st Oldham sponsors an ongoing programme of healthy living initiatives and events run by StreetGames, including the annual free entry Oldham Run4Fun and a range of sport and youth activities across Oldham. Additional match funds were also secured from the National Sports Foundation to make an even greater impact

StreetGames  demonstrates how doorstep sport can be used as an effective mechanism for tackling health inequalities, particularly in areas of deprivation. In just three years the charity has generated over 1 million attendances through its network of doorstep sport projects. These community projects use volunteers to act as mentors and role models in their own neighbourhoods, inspiring younger children to get regularly involved with a range of sports and activities

Equity Solutions is proud to be able to provide much needed additional sponsorship to support these worthwhile activities.

Oldham Community Leisure (OCL) is leading on the initiative, known as the Energize project, working alongside Oldham Athletic Community Trust, Community 1st Oldham and The Oldham College, to deliver a comprehensive programme offering a host of sporting activities, as well as volunteering opportunities and training. Community 1st Oldham and Sport England’s SportMatch are providing funding for the project.

The project has an ambitious target of 10,000 new attendances at new sport sessions between January and July 2012.

Alan Keane, Health and Outdoor Development Officer, OCL, said: “This is a great example of Oldham organisations working together to make taking part in sport and physical activity easy, enjoyable, and affordable. Increasing participation in sport is just one element – we are aiming to improve the health and wellbeing of the people taking part, as well as offering them volunteering and training opportunities, which could lead to paid employment. Whilst our main target group is young people from 16 to25 who are often less likely to participate in sport, we are also offering activities for families and older people.”

The programme will offer a number of popular sports including football, boxing, cricket, basketball, swimming and rugby for a nominal charge of around 50 pence per session. Three month gym memberships will be available for just £10. There will also be a number of outdoor activities including walking, climbing, running and cycling, which links to Oldham Council’s objectives to make Oldham’s countryside and outdoor offering more accessible.

As part of Energize’s health-improvement remit, it will fund places on a new GP exercise referral programme for people with chronic medical conditions who are on a low income.

Neil Charlesworth, General Manager of Community 1st Oldham, said: “Community 1st Oldham is proud to support the Energize project and our local partners to deliver activities which will bring young people and communities together to have fun and get fit and healthy. We believe the GP exercise referral programme will make a great local health improvement impact.”

Young people themselves were instrumental in the project planning with a survey of more than 600 young people attending The Oldham College helping the team decide on what activities to offer, and where, as well as how to promote them. Jenny Bates, Student Participation Co-ordinator, The Oldham College, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for students to be able to access new activities without cost being a barrier. The Energize project supports the College’s ethos to enrich and enhance the student experience through different opportunities for young people and will link to our already well-established enrichment programme.”

The project is using social media and digital technology to engage young people, with a designated Facebook page as well as an interactive website where participants can monitor their progress, access individualised nutritional plans, and have health and fitness questions answered by a ‘virtual coach’.

The activities will be delivered in existing facilities as well as new venues in the community such as community centres, schools, parks and the countryside.

The schemes have been commissioned by NHS Sheffield and will be delivered by Community 1st Sheffield (the company in which Equity Solutions is the private sector partner) to combine a range of medical services, including GP and nursing facilities and minor surgery, whilst also providing a hub for the local community.

To mark the start of construction work, turf cutting ceremonies took place during December and January, led by local MPs or councillors, with representatives from Community 1st Sheffield, NHS Sheffield, the GP practices and community groups also in attendance.

Rt Hon David Blunkett, MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, officially cut the first sod at the Foxhill Medical Centre construction site on 13th January and commented that the medical centre will be ‘first class’, adding: “I know that local people will benefit in all sorts of ways.”

Ian Atkinson, Chief Operating Officer of NHS Sheffield and the Sheffield NHS Clinical Commissioning Group, said at the Darnall ceremony: “I’m proud we are able to celebrate these plans to develop four new medical centres in Sheffield by 2013. We have developed them together with local GPs, partners and members of the community with the aim of providing modern, high quality and sustainable services for the future of healthcare in the city.”

Foxhill Medical Centre is due to open to the public in early 2013 and the other three should all open in late 2012.

During 2011, staff took part in a range of activities to help their local communities, including:

• Helping out the Lune Rivers Trust which works to protect and restore the River Lune and its tributaries.

• Volunteering with the KRIV (Kerridge Ridge & Ingersley Vale) volunteer team, which is a group who meet weekly to help preserve the local countryside in and around Bollington and Rainow.

• Organising an ‘Old Folks Cinema Event’ – an afternoon event for local seniors from the area to see a screening of Oscar winning ‘The Kings Speech’ with refreshments afterwards.

• Transforming a storage room at the Oldham Children’s Society offices in Lees into a fantastic sensory room for the kids that use the centre.

Employees are already organising activities for 2012 and we look forward to supporting more volunteering opportunities throughout this year.

Equity Solutions company bluesky is the architect responsible for designing eight of the 16 fire stations for the Balfour Beatty Fire and Rescue  consortium.

The building is a small one-bay station located in the heart of the National Park and in a conservation area. As such, it was designed to harmonise with its rural surroundings, utilising traditional materials and dispensing with the more usual red cladding.

- How to make your estate ‘fit for purpose’ and ‘transition ready’?
- How to find out how well your facilities are used?
- How to reduce your carbon footprint?
- How to deliver and manage multiple community services?

Or how about how to find an expert estate partner, one that will support you to make the right, well informed, estate choices so that you can focus on service delivery?

Equity Solutions’ approach is less about providing solutions we think you might need and more about providing choices for discussion; choices that meet your individual requirements. Click here to discover more.

Choices for a changing world…

All our worlds are changing. We have to provide more for less and we have to do this in the most challenging of circumstances. We’d like to talk about how we can help each other.

The Equity Solutions Group is a responsible service provider and partner, investing in infrastructure projects and partnerships that make a difference. We are the long term private sector partner in three LIFT areas – Cornwall, Oldham and Sheffield – through our joint venture companies, Community 1st, where we are working with our public sector partners to overcome their estate challenges to help them provide the right services in the right place, in ‘fit for purpose’ facilities which help transform local communities.

Contact us to discuss your requirements or sign up for regular updates on the latest Government policy changes and how our services can help you.

No matter what choices you need to make, we will offer an independent view.

Funds raised by staff activities in 2011 now amount to more than £1,000, which will enable further vocational training for the kids at the home throughout 2012 with a little left over to make Christmas special in Pokhara this year.

The kids vocational training programme for 2012 will include tailoring, electronics, plumbing, dance, administration, carpentry and crafts but can now also extend to computer skills for the older kids and the Home can extend the vocational training to incorporate the two most recent additions, Sangita and Amrita.

Throughout 2011 the staff at ES&P have taken part in a wide variety of fundraising activities such as the British Military Fitness Great North Challenge in February, the Dragon Boat Race in July and the Urbanathlon in November. The funds raised by the staff have been allocated specifically to the vocational training programme that we have agreed to fund at Shangri-La, in order to give the kids necessary skills to move forward in life when they leave the Home in future.

Christmas is not traditionally a celebrated holiday in Nepal, but since the first year of the Home the staff have taken the opportunity to introduce an element of this Western tradition by doing something different for the kids.

Thanks to the generosity of the staff at Equity Solutions, this year the kids will get a day trip together, plus a new set of clothes and a pair of shoes, and some sweets with a little cash left over for Krishna, the Home’s Manager, to put aside for a rainy day.

Helping Hands Trust further helped Shangri-La this year by funding a building extension to the Home, adding a whole new floor to the building which provided extra space for the current residents and also meant extra kids could come into the safe and loving environment.

If you would like more information on the work of the Helping Hands Trust or to make an online donation, please follow this link to the website http://www.helpinghandstrust.org.uk/