About Us

Making Communities Work and Grow (MCWG) is a user-led voluntary organisation aiming to improve the social and educational development of disadvantaged young people. We are based in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

The project started as the “Moroccan Community Welfare Group” in 1994, in response to a lack of specific services for Arabic speaking young people in the area. Our inclusive ethos has meant that we increasingly open our doors to disadvantaged young people from a variety of backgrounds, for example from White British, Somali and Bangladeshi communities, hence our change of name.

MCWG was set up to cater for the needs of the disadvantaged young people from Arabic speaking and BME back grounds in North Kensington and Chelsea and to help tackle the complicated, personal and social problems the community was facing. Our services are now accessed by the wider BME community; however, the majority of our service users are Muslim. This makes the work we do vital for our community as the obstacles and problems they face are not always fully understood by mainstream organisations and local authority bodies. The majority of problems and difficulties they face are no different from the problems faced by other communities in deprived areas. Poverty, poor education, lack of adequate educational support and unemployment are all factors affecting the lives of our community members. To add to these problems are the issues that are specifically affecting our community and other Muslim communities in Britain, such as alienation and disengagement. This is particularly the case with our younger service users, who are now facing a massive predicament about identity which if not addressed, can lead towards the further isolation and social exclusion of the young people in our community.

MCWG runs a number of different projects for the community including a youth project, supplementary school, football, swimming, advice and counselling and community events. Our projects are tailored to meet the needs of our community and our users are always involved in the planning and delivery of our projects. Our main focus currently is on young people and their personal, social and educational development. We run a skills development centre for young people aged 11-21. At our youth centre we work with young people to help them discover and work towards their potential. Much of the recent work we have conducted with young people has been focused around issues of identity, social inclusion and engagement as we have found these to be some of the major concerns our service users have at the moment.