A Nottingham charity is taking over a community centre that has been ‘closed for a long time’ - and officials have big plans on how to bring the community together. Diversifying Education Interest Company was founded 6 years ago.
Soon, they will be based at the Beechdale Community Centre in Ambergate Road. With a growing number of volunteers, Diversifying Education’s main aims are to celebrate and promote African and Caribbean Cultures and Traditions, as well as bringing communities together.
Shanine Fasasi, the founder of the charity, set it up 6 years after witnessing the misconceptions and stereotypes around Black, African and Caribbean students in schools whilst on her university placements. Now, working alongside many different local charities and organisations, the organisation will be able to reach out to more communities when they move in, in May.
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Shanine said: “We plan to do a community cafe and call it the TeaPot Cafe and have a community kitchen, there’ll be sewing classes too. We want different groups and schools to come to the centre, too, and make this a central hub for diversity.”
“We needed a community centre and Beechdale seemed ideal and it’s been closed for a long time - many people in the area are glad it will soon be open.
“Everyone will be welcome here. We’ll be having a Coronation tea for all people in Beechdale with a touch of cultural flair to show how much we value diversity.”
At Diversifying Educations there is a Dads and Lads group, a Women’s Group, a community book shelf and more.
Shanine added: “We have the centre but we’ll still need funding to keep it running and maintain that so we can provide for communities.”
One of the groups working with Shanine is Read on Nottingham. Read on Nottingham works with families and children to improve their life chances by giving them the literacy skills they need. Lynne Towle, the Literacy Project Manager at Read on Nottingham, said: “Diversifying Education has many things that we can help with.
“If Shanine said ‘we’ve got a load of kids coming over’ we can provide the books. From Marcus Rashford books for children to books for the Diversifying Education Dads and Lads group, we can provide books.
“Our main mission is to get families and children reading for pleasure. At a Nottingham Panthers game, we gave 1,000 books away and people always ask ‘is it free?’ the answer is yes, everything is always free and all brand new.”
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