It’s often said that a crisis can reveal the true character of a person or organisation.

Over recent years, we haven’t been short of crises.

Back in early 2017, Nova had been working for 34 years in adult education and pre-employment support, helping people to move forward with their lives. We had just embarked on an exciting new social change initiative to counter some of the societal tensions and conflicts impacting our community, amplified by the debate around Brexit the year before. Then June arrived, bringing with it the shock of the Grenfell Tower fire, just down the road from our base in North Kensington. Individuals we had known, worked with, and laughed with were lost in that terrible tragedy. It was a moment of immense, bleak energy that Nova managed to weather and channel into action. We didn’t ask permission. We didn’t wait for funding. We contacted our service users — past and present — to find out what they needed, and what we heard back was overwhelming: hopelessness and isolation, exhaustion and confusion, as well as grief and anger. With what little capacity Nova had, we redirected our efforts to provide relief and respite for children and families struggling to cope in the aftermath. We created a series of gatherings, events, and activities that offered precious moments of hope, optimism, and connection with the wider world. Thus, our Family Programme was born, and we began working with people of all ages.

A few years later, our Family Programme was happily embedded alongside our other streams of work, its offering of quality activities being spread mainly by word of mouth. Covid-19 hit our community disproportionately. What quickly became clear under lockdown was that households already facing deprivation and other serious challenges were hit much harder and much faster. We launched our online schooling within weeks of the first Covid restrictions. With help from our partner organisations, who donated tablets and laptops, we kept our young people learning, aiming to stop them from sliding further behind the academic curve. Not only did we provide maths and English classes, but also science sessions to spark their innate curiosity, expand their horizons, and keep them thinking big. Our work during that time earned us Imperial College’s Inspirational Partner of the Year award in 2022.

“All of us at Imperial have really valued our engagement with Nova — you are such an impressive and deeply rooted local organisation, and we’re proud to have worked with you on a range of initiatives involving local families, including Ask Scientist and WellHome. We have also appreciated Nova involving members of the College community in other important local discussion and dialogue events and opportunities, for example Let’s Talk About Race.”

Now, we are battling the cost-of-living crisis. With its inexorable grinding down of people’s quality of life as they struggle to keep themselves and their families afloat day to day, the opportunities for learning and play have never been more widely needed. We’ve continued to evolve and adapt our Family Programme, offering both term-time classes and a hugely popular school holiday programme. Last year, we worked with over 1,300 people across more than 900 activities and classes, with almost 10,000 attendances.

97% of the people we work with rate their experience as “Very Good” or “Excellent.”

We recognise the positive impact our work has on the lives of those who need our services; it spurs us on to think creatively about how we can extend our reach whilst maintaining a high-quality offering. We were delighted to be recognised in turn by winning the 2024 Young K&C Award for Best Work Supporting Training and Education for young people.

However, like the rest of Nova, our Family Programme operates on the tightest of budgets for what we deliver. This summer, as an organisation, we are looking to raise £10,000 to help us continue to grow and deliver our work towards building a brighter future for all. It would be wonderful if you were able to help us on our journey.

So, back to consider the opening sentence: how would you describe our character?

Donate here to our fundraiser, and help us build a better world.