Promoting Wellbeing for Asylum Seekers

St Augustine's Centre is a specialist charity dedicated to supporting people seeking asylum and refuge in Calderdale. They provide practical assistance to help individuals rebuild their lives with dignity and offer a variety of activities to enhance their happiness and sense of connection. The services include advice on immigration and asylum, one-to-one support with welfare, housing, health, and access to broader services.

St Augustine's takes a holistic and person-centred approach, ensuring a welcoming, safe, and inclusive environment for everyone. The centre offers English language classes, training sessions, creative and social activities, sports and wellbeing programs, trips, and volunteering opportunities. Additionally, their befriending and integration service helps newcomers feel part of the community.

St Augustine's Centre is dedicated to enhancing the physical well being of their members through a variety of initiatives and they have made great strides with their programme of activities in 2023. Below, we take a look at the progress and impact of some of these initiatives in the last quarter of 2023.

A gentle intro through Yoga

Yoga sessions have been a valuable addition to their offerings, especially encouraging members who hadn't participated in physical activities before to get involved. Although these sessions were open to all, St Augustine’s specifically targeted this program at women, and out of the 37 attendees, 30 were women. Additionally, the centre collaborated with Calderdale College to give their members who are college students free access to the gym facilities, which is a fantastic opportunity. They're working on tracking how many of their members are using this offer, especially since the yoga sessions take place at the college. The college has now expressed interest in expanding the partnership.

Table Tennis Thriving

The partnership with Halifax Table Tennis Centre in Ovenden continues to thrive, with 6 to 10 members attending weekly sessions led by two qualified coaches and Jake, a top 400 nationally ranked player. The group, made up of both adults and teenagers, consistently improve their skills. Jake maintains communication with Table Tennis England and Sport England to increase awareness and secure high-quality equipment. Looking ahead to 2024, he aims to further develop the group, prepare select members for the Halifax Table Tennis Summer League, and arrange additional coaching with Sam Clayton, the head coach at Halifax Table Tennis Centre.

Bike Loans prove vital

St Augustine’s Cycle Club also remains active, providing bike loans totaling 5,388 hours during this reporting period. Eight shorter, ad hoc sessions were held, involving 15 participants in activities such as "Learn to Fix," "Fix," and group rides, tailored to weather and daylight conditions. This has helped to maintain the current fleet and expand it with three additional bikes.

There were also a number of other well established activities that continue to thrive and the attendance of these for quarter 4 of 2023 can be found in the table below.

Activity	Total No. Of Sessions	Total Attendance	No. Of Individuals
Boxing	9	98	41
Dancing	3	13	7
Football	16	198	48
Gardening	12	72	11
Walk 'n' Talk	2	22	21
Table Tennis	9	47	24
Yoga	4	60	37

Overall, these activities are enhancing members' physical fitness while fostering a sense of community and inclusion.