Responding to Needs across Tees Valley

The Tees Valley Inclusion Project has been established by a group of women to engage and assist people from a diverse range of communities especially women and members of the BME community across Tees Valley. The support will be provided in social, physical, cultural, educational, employment empowerment activities, programmes and initiatives.

The Project will provide opportunities to advance education, training and employment initiatives and empower individuals, especially women by providing information, help and support, challenging disadvantage and discrimination in a culturally sensitive way. The gap in health inequalities is also an area of work we will be supporting and working to address. We recognise the barriers some women and young people from BME groups encounter, whether this is accessing health care provision or getting involved in health initiatives and sport. The need to tackle disadvantage and inequalities is evident in major research focussing on BME groups across the Tees Valley.

The project aims to work with individuals and groups who are seeking advice and specifically designed programmes which meet the gap that currently exists with areas of mainstream services. The issue of domestic violence and honour based violence in the south Asian community is prevalent, recent work with the Cleveland Police helpline “ Choice” has identified shortfalls in support work at the heart of the community. The project will provide advice and guidance and support to those who are suffering at the hands of domestic violence and provide various types of education & awareness workshops, and activities for people from the Black and Minority Ethnic background including confidence training, workshops to promote education and training in the voluntary sector. Although the Project will focus on BME communities and Women, the nature of the Project will not exclude any protected characteristic as outline in the Equality Act 2010.