About The Attlee Foundation
Attlee Youth & Community Centre
Aims
The Attlee Youth & Community Centre provides a range of opportunities for children and young people in Spitalfields, East London, a very disadvantaged inner city area.
Good quality play and recreation is the best way for children to learn about, and develop respect for others and themselves, so that they are better equipped to tackle the exclusionary effects of poverty, racism and poor housing.
Activities & Achievements
Integrated Play
The Centre's integrated play programme, supported by the Childrens Fund and BBC Children in Need, plus many others, has included a wide range of activities for children over five years old of all abilities.
There were all the usual on site activities of sports, games, arts, crafts and music plus trips to the seaside, cinema and bowling.
Youth Group
The youth group had an exciting year with a residential trip to an activity centre near Bournemouth, a fireworks display on Bonfire Night, and an inter-club pool tournament, which was a successful attempt to break down barriers between groups of local youths.
Girls Group
Friday nights are girls only and workshops include T-shirt design, accessory making, keep fit and regular trips – the next one planned is to the theatre to see Bombay Dreams.
School Holidays
During the summer, the Foundation organised a family trip to Southend where families could escape the hustle and bustle of inner city London and relax on the beach for a few hours.
One of the highlights of the year was going to see the Bangladesh National Under 21s play West Ham’s under 21s at Upton Park.
Although the score was not what we’d hoped for, the children enjoyed the novelty of going to watch a live match.
What's On Now?
The Centre is open after school on Tuesdays (youth group only), Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays (girls only) and all day Saturday.
There is a minibus service on Saturdays and during school holidays for members with special needs from all over Tower Hamlets. During school holidays it is open Tuesdays to Saturdays.
Development Scheme
The Attlee Youth & Community Centre site and premises have reached the end of their useful life. Following a great deal of consultation, the Foundation has produced a development plan to improve the facilities significantly.
Outline planning permission was granted in November 2001 and an appeal to raise the £2.75million required is underway to maximise the potential of this site for the development of young people.
The brief for the new Centre was to create flexible, multi-purpose spaces both indoors and out. The main hall will be two storeys, with noisy activities on the ground floor and quiet spaces upstairs.
It is designed to meet the needs of children and young people, from sport, to play, from reading to web-surfing, from photography to art and design, from music-making to cooking and baking.
The meeting and seminar rooms will be available for hire during the day and the hall can also be used for community meetings or even weddings.
The outdoor space is divided between sport and recreation. There will be an astro-turf and a hard-court pitch. These will also be available for hire during peak times so contributing to the running costs.
On the other side, there will be open space, play structures and a sensory garden with touchy, feely, smelly and tasty plants and features to stimulate the senses and give members hands on experience of working with their environment.
All parts of the Centre will be fully accessible and designed with special needs in mind in keeping with the founding principle of the old Adventure Playground to be fully integrated and inclusive.
Tickets Please
Tickets Please provides small grants to individuals through agencies such as social services to cover travel expenses for therapeutic journeys.
Most often, these are to enable parents to visit children or premature babies in special care units, which are often very far from home. Maintaining family contacts in these and other situations, for example people in rehabilitative care, is crucial to a successful outcome for all concerned.
Our history
The Attlee Foundation was set up in 1967 to commemorate the life, work and achievements of Clement Attlee, the post-war Prime Minister whose government created the National Health Service and welfare state.
It was established with the proceeds of a public appeal that raised over half a million pounds following his death. This was a great deal of money at that time and offers an accurate gauge of the high esteem in which Clement Attlee was held by the general public.
Broadly, the Foundation aims to promote Attlee's vision of a more just society through a variety of projects.
The actual programmes are reviewed and revised periodically by the trustees in order to ensure continuing relevance to a rapidly changing world.
In the past, the Foundation has been involved in projects developing approaches to tackling drug addiction, eye camps in India and support for Commonwealth students studying in Britain.