The Wakefield Asian Welfare Association (WAWA) was launched in 1995 by a handful of like-minded people. Receiving a small grant of £10k in 1996 from Social Services, the group operated on a shoe-string budget firstly from St Catherine street and then from offices in Montague street (old doctors' surgery). The year 1998 brought funding from Adult Education dept and the Lottery Fund which enabled WAWA to have paid staff for the very first time.

WAWA has been managed on the basis of a Constituted Management Committee, and has drawn its membership from the local Asian Community. It has a board of directors who act as the key designated officers and they have the overall responsibility for managing the organisation. It has been developed with the help of a number of employees. These have included a Education Training and Development Co-ordinator, a Volunteer Co-ordinator and an Administrative Assistant. Together and with a range of volunteers these employees have facilitated the work of the Executive Management Committee in running the projects.

The main reason for setting up WAWA was to provide advice and information to the local community in a friendly atmosphere with the long-term aim being to have a purpose built community centre, which could be used for a host of activities by the local community.

WAWA recognised the lack of activities available to the Asian elderly and one of the first projects WAWA undertook was the elderly day care project, which is still going strong today. For seven years the project operated from former retail premises within the Agbrigg area whilst at the same time work was being done to secure land and funding for the new community centre.

Finally after years of hard work the community centre was completed and WAWA relocated to new premises within the Agbrigg & Belle Vue Community Centre in January 2003. WAWA has developed partnerships with a number of organisations, including the Local Authority and in particular the Education & Cultural Services, Housing & Social Services Care, Wakefield College and the Voluntary sector. Through these partnerships, WAWA has delivered a range of services within the local community. Also WAWA works very closely with the police as well as the armed services and in the past has hosted recruitment information days for the armed services.

The following outputs have been delivered by W.A.W.A. from its current offices in the past 2 years:

• A drop-in and advice centre which help individuals each month to access information and guidance on benefits, welfare rights, the availability of training courses and housing information;

• The delivery of basic skills, numeracy and literacy skills, basic I.T. skills learning programmes, and, especially, ESOL, all provided within the community.

• The provision of a job-search facility which is available on a multi-lingual basis to members of the local community;

• A base for the delivery of care to elderly members of the local community, which caters for over 30 people each week;

• A base in which young people can meet and access indoor recreation facilities.

• A centre at which asylum seekers can obtain advice and other help.

• Providing information and application forms for both British Passports and Pakistani Passports and NICOP (New Pakistani ID cards)

Recently, Jaan caught up with WAWA at their offices for an interview. Naveed and Hanif interviewed Javed Iqbal and Fida Hussain at the Agbrigg and Belle Vue Community Centre.
 

We would like to thank WAWA for taking the time to talk to Jaan.