News

In 2019 POP+ set up something radical: The Learning & Collaboration Fund. The aim of the fund is ‘to do what it says on the tin’: to encourage learning (through ‘doing’) and to encourage existing groups and organisations to work together. “Funding,” says Charlotte Brew, POP+’s Learning Champion (yes that really is her job title),…
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Some of the city’s charitable organisations may owe their survival, post the pandemic, to the combined efforts of POP+ and the Plymouth Social Enterprise Network. Throughout the lockdown POP+ and PSEN have been regularly meeting with the Plymouth City Council’s economic development team to highlight the plight of charities and social enterprises across the city…
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When Helen Lounds had an accident and found herself being discharged from hospital with her leg in a cast her first concern wasn’t about herself but for her four dogs and how they were going to get their daily exercise. She need not have worried: not one but several knights in shining armour from the…
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Since the beginning of the pandemic and the launch of the lockdown, the internet and social media has enabled thousands of individuals to form support groups and to respond quickly to calls for help. That so much community action has taken place by so many has been both humbling and heartening but, at the same…
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Since the beginning of the lockdown POP ideas has been supporting more than eighty voluntary, community, social enterprise groups and organisations across the city with one-to-one advice on how they might survive the economic and social impact of the pandemic. The team of advisors has been supporting more than twice as many groups and organisations…
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Thank you for the 17 applications POP+ received for round two of the Learning and Collaboration fund, it highlighted the amazing collaboration which is happening across the city. In April, the Network of Networks the decision making group, met virtually in a Zoom room during the early days of lockdown, to decide which collaborations would…
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An extraordinary wave of empathy and compassion has swept across the city, on the back of the coronavirus, delivering practical support for those in need; befriending the lonely and reassuring those anxious. Through the newly-formed Neighbourhood Care Networks, areas around the city – Stonehouse, The Hoe and Stoke – have taken help-in-the-community to a new…
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 Swapping Cream Teas and Cricket for Footie and Fried Rice to improve ethnic relations in Plymouth  A pilot project in Plymouth aims to unify communities from different cultural backgrounds by sharing recipes, sport and life experiences.  Food hampers and sports sets have been delivered across the city as part of the Unifying Plymouth initiative.  Nigerian meal kits have been given to 25, mainly white, British families. They contain all…
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The Whitleigh Diversity Project was a 10-session project, later extended to 14 sessions, that ran from November 2019 until February 2020. The project originally started with a group Barefoot worked with in Ernesettle in 2016 and aims to challenge misconceptions young people may have towards people from different backgrounds and cultures through experiential learning while…
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Plymouth VCSE survey – April 2020 – Summary The voluntary and community sector in Plymouth is showing an extraordinary level of resilience, adaption and innovation despite being severely affected by the conditions put in place to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. A survey of the sector carried out by POP+ (Plymouth Octopus Project) in the last…
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