2020 ANNUAL REPORT

A Year for the Books.

2020 was a challenging year for all. The impact of COVID-19, social isolation and subsequent policy affected many of the amazing groups and people we work with. With over 700,000 more individuals and families in the UK pushed into poverty during the pandemic (Legatum Institute, 2020), access to basic necessities such as food and healthy lifestyles were negatively impacted for many. The UK’s black and brown populations were reported to be more significantly impacted by COVID-19, highlighting the health inequalities minority groups experience. With a light being shone on racial disparities, it also came to light that women and people from lower socio-economic groups faced higher rates of disruption to treatment (Niedzwiedz et al, 2021), increasing already prevalent disparities in quality of life.

However, the pandemic forced a shift in how many look at wellness, selfcare, mental health and physical activity, with TFL predicting that walking and cycling increased by 29% between April and June 2020. Strava reported an increase of 35% in Londoners cycling. But who experienced the benefits of this shift? With many companies sold out of affordable bikes for months on end, some of the most underprivilege groups affected by difficult and prohibitive urban landscaping and a lack of space, a number of barriers to accessing walking and cycling persist.

The year was also characterised by the murder of George Floyd in the US, with international outcry and a focus on the impacts of personal and systematic racism many organisations have ramped up their support for combatting racial disparities and inequalities, including providing targeted funding for inactivity among black people, women and those in lower socioeconomic groups, who are least likely to be active, own a bike or cycle.

Furthermore, events of 2020 left many unemployed, isolated from family and friends and uncertain about the future. The legacy of 2020 and COVID-19 in the UK will continue and be a year hard to forget. As an organisation based in inner-city London, we witnessed and supported people experiencing many of the challenges described and adapted our projects to the needs of the community. We hope to continue learning from our community members about how best to support them.

Facts & Figures.

In 2020, My Choice aimed to engage a wider spread of the community, bring people together and continue to decrease barriers to opportunities for our core groups during an exceptionally challenging year. We believe in working within the community to bring out strengths, locate opportunities and build connection.

Cycling and Community Fitness

Through our work in cycling; we ran over 90 free cycling sessions and 4 family cycle days. We engaged 200 women and girls in at least 1 of our cycle activities from March to September 2020. Over 40% of individuals who joined our cycle sessions described themselves as inactive or new cyclists.

We launched our youth cycling club in Hackney and Newham and engaged 30 young people from 6 to 18 in recreational cycling and road safety workshops. Through our cycling work with young people, we have been able to support young people and their families get into the community and explore their local environment. The youth cycling club also positively contributed to reducing home based conflict and contextual safeguarding risks as young people and parents report positive knock on consequences of physical exercise, belonging to a club, meeting new young people from other areas and youth led activities.  

Black Riders Association Community Cycling Club (BRA) raised over £3000 for charitable causes including The CARAF Centre, by undertaking their annual London to Southend-on-Sea ride. The ride saw 35 novice cyclists and previously inactive people train via BRA’s weekly rides to cycle the 50 mile journey. Overall BRA built a membership of 450 people in the year 2020 with 98% of people engaged via Black Riders Association cycle projects having a Black Caribbean or African heritage. Black Riders Association provided 7 community members with free certified Cycle Leader training at the Lee Valley Velodrome supported by key members of Hackney Council. This training has enabled members to competently lead 40 additional cycle sessions across London.

We also participated in the Black Unity Bike Ride procession in August 2020 where over 1500 cyclists came out to cycle from Walthamstow to Brixton in unity and represent black empowerment following a multitude of racist events in the UK and US and the health inequalities highlighted by the COVID19 pandemic. The Black Riders Association were among the key cycling initiatives who supported the organisation of the peaceful and empowering ride.

We were able to provide 800 hot nutritious meals to the community from March to October in Hackney, with 36% of residents living in poverty and food poverty increasing during the pandemic, we aimed to de-stigmatise the experience of poverty and increase collective community experiences. Furthermore, we aimed to positively contribute to the creation of new life-long cyclists by providing access to free cycle session that improved confidence and general fitness levels. One of the key barriers to participation was owning or accessing a suitable bike, and through the support our of affiliates we were able to give bikes to 15 families helping them to engage in cycling as a lifestyle.

Additional consequences of our easy to access community cycling projects include improved confidence, over half of members reported feeling more confident, healthy or fit as a direct result of taking up cycling. 80% of members said that they had made a new friend or business connection by attending our cycling activities and this positively contributed to reduced isolation and recovering from the impacts of lockdown restrictions.

Upskilling and Accessing Opportunity

During 2020 we were able to provide free level 2 food safety and first aid at work to 5 people who had experience furlough, redundancy or long term unemployment. An additional 5 people accessed business mentoring from Senior Management Professionals in industries including Cosmetics & Beauty, Import and Export, Finance and Construction and we were able to provide paid work to 6 people experiencing financial difficulty.

We ran 3 sessions on Microsoft proficiency for work, company branding, business plan writing, business budgeting and pitching engaging over 30 people.

We were able to share over 80 jobs opportunities with members and provide 200 volunteering and upskilling hours to community members during a difficult time to access training and employment.

Impact.

Our mission continues to be about making opportunities accessible for all by reducing the barriers that race and socioeconomics play in education, training, health and employment. We continue to battle the stigma attached to prison-leavers, stereotypes of black people and inner city youth through creating inclusive environments led by the people they serve. We work to create opportunities for the African and Caribbean diaspora in the UK through better representation in sports, professional work, education and the community.

Looking Ahead

Our targets for 2021-2022 aim to increase our engagement 2 fold, with black, working class and prison leaving and youth communities in East and South East London through community building activities and cycling projects, partner with more national and global companies to provide truly accessible quality employment and work experience opportunities and continue to address the impacts of social isolation, general poverty, health inequalities and food poverty. We aim to develop our model of sustainability through increased social enterprise activities in order to expand the reach and impact of our projects.

We’re excited to work with organisations including London Marathon Events, Trek and London Cycling Campaign in this coming year.

My Choice community membership rate since 2017

Thank you.

In 2020 we were supported in kind by The Black Superstore who provided food weekly for our meals. Food Junkie who catered our annual Southend-On-Sea ride for the second year running. AXL Events who subsidised the cost of the Food Safety qualifications our members undertook and supported the preparation of our weekly hot meals.

We are grateful to London Youth whose funding contributed to Youth Cycling Club.

We want to thank our members for believing in the work that we do and continuing to support one another.

We are thankful to our Board Members for their continued and unwavering support of our community work and constant endeavour to provide sound leadership in the face of the complex social issues we tackle.

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