As I’m sure you’re aware the Prime Minister has issued some guidelines around how we should respond to the Coronavirus epidemic, both as a nation and as Londoners. At Alternatives we are taking this seriously and are reviewing our response regularly. Following the most recent government announcements and in order to do all we can to protect our service users, staff and volunteers, the Alternatives office will not be open to visitors for the time being. However, we have reshaped our service and are being more of an outreach to the most vulnerable in the borough.

We have seen that the reality of self- isolation and social-distancing has made difficult situations even more difficult for the 70 vulnerable families that we work with regularly and so we are tailoring our support by delivering services directly to their doors. For those seeking counselling, pregnancy or pregnancy loss support we are offering our services remotely. We ask all of you to please not come to the office but instead use the contact details below if you need to access support.

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Our emergency relief response to date;

We have received an amazing response to our request for help with supporting the Alternatives family during this difficult time. We recently partnered with Bonny Downs Community Association, The Magpie Project, West Silvertown Foundation and The Renewal Programme and are working with them to provide wider emergency assistance to the most vulnerable in Newham. The response to a joint appeal has been more generous than we could have hoped and our joint update is written below.

Emergency Appeal Update from all Charities;

We are overwhelmed with the generosity and support given to Newham charities. Thank you so much for helping us raise over £11,000 for our joint emergency appeal. The money raised is helping to provide emergency packs to Newham’s most vulnerable residents – in fact we’ve already helped over 200 families thanks to you!

We set up our emergency appeal, hoping that this would be a crisis that would only last a few weeks. With the recent government updates that quarantine may last significantly longer than we originally thought, the charities have decided that we need to focus on our individual long-term aims during this crisis. Because Newham’s community have been so generous and helped us smash our fundraising target, we have decided to close our joint emergency appeal, and focus on our specific areas going forward. This is so we can ensure your donations are spent in the most effective way and make sure all of the charities helping our community can do so during this crisis – and beyond. Because when all of this is over, the people our charities were set up to help will still need us. 

Each charity works with slightly different groups of people, and we will all be working non-stop to help these communities – including of course providing emergency relief packs for those who need them most.  As charities and individuals, we will all be supporting each other through this difficult time. Newham is a close-knit community and it’s together that we will come through this.

We’ll be sharing details about how you can donate to or fundraise for Alternatives over the coming days and weeks. If you are able to please go to our donation page and continue to support us, and all of the fantastic charities working hard in Newham.

We hope we can continue to rely on your kindness and generosity as we work through the coming weeks and months. Thank you again for all of your support and solidarity.

If you would like to help:

• Please donate online and use COVID-19 as your reference.

• Please purchase the following in your normal shop and deliver it to our offices so we can get items to families:

Pasta/ Rice
Vegetables
Fruit
Meat
Tinned foods
Cooking oil
Tea/Coffee
Soap/Laundry Products
Nappies
Wipes/Toilet roll
Baby food
Art & crafts supplies
Games and Puzzles

Please contact us when you’d like to drop them off or give us a call if you have any questions. We’re so grateful for your support and if you have any other suggestions/queries feel free to get in touch.

Our contact details are;

Address:     Alternatives Trust East London
                     Forrest House
                     63 Rowntree Clifford Close
                     Liddon Road
                     E13 8AB

Email: alternatives@altel.org.uk

Phone: 0207 4768215 or 07903 699553

Thank you so much for your help so far, we really couldn’t do it without you!