Sahara Project

Chair's Report:

The Sahara Project is a unique project, which is set up specifically to explore and provide culturally appropriate support to meet the needs of Asian older people with mental health difficulties.

This project is successful due to a number of reasons such as a warm welcome, easy access and the location of the office. The Sahara Project is situated at 186 Foleshill Road, Coventry, which is on an easy busy route from the City Centre.

The project has been working exceptionally well in partnership with Social Services, Community Mental Health Team (OP) North, and the voluntary sector which includes The Tamarind Centre, MIND organisation, Sahil Project, Age Concern, St Paul’s Church, the Multi Cultural Forum and the Foleshill Women’s Training Centre etc.

The Sahara Project has also developed good links with the Area Co-ordination Team in arranging “two neighbourhood planning days” with them. One of the days was held in September 2003, which was to explore the needs of Asian Community in order to improve their neighbourhood environment. The second “neighbourhood planning feedback” was organised by Sahara Project on 19/08/2004.

Besides working in partnership with other organisations, Sahara Project has also been actively involved in providing one to one service, which includes drop in home visits, advocacy work, as well as group works. Over the years Sahara Project has been involved in arranging day trips for their service users, in partnership with Social Services.

Unfortunately our advocacy worker Mrs Ravinder Dadda has made the decision to leave her employment, at Sahara but the good news is that she has given birth to a beautiful baby girl. We wish her all the best for the future; and the Sahara project team, as well as the service users will dearly miss her.

Regardless of this year being so challenging the staff at the Sahara Project continued to work very hard, as well as building good relationships with the statutory and voluntary sector. The manager also identified a gap in the service provision which led to the recruitment of an addition admin support worker on a part time basis. This has meant that when the service user telephone they are able to receive support from the team. The manager has been responsible for promoting Sahara further by recruiting a few management committee members including Mr Ninder Virk, Mr Kuldip Sodhi, Ms Nirmaljeet Kaur, Ms Abby Khan and Betty Saltiel.

While recruiting new members one of our colleagues Ms Health Parker resigned from the management committee in September 2004 in order to travel around the world with her family. She has proven that life is what we make it.

Finally I wish to thank Rajo, and her staff again for all their hard work they have been doing over the years. And I wish to thank all the management committee members and special thanks to Mr Inderjit Kumar, our treasurer for all his support. I would like to wish Sahara all the best for the future.

Harjit Mathara (Ms)
Approved Social Worker/Development Worker
Chairperson for Sahara Project
29/06/05