Over three days, more than 4,000 plants and eight trees were planted across the Packington estate to improve surroundings for local residents, many of whom live in flats with no gardens.

Following the success in February, we ran the Mental Health workshops at Islington’s primary schools again, to mark the Mental Health Awareness Week.

We caught up with one of our community partners, The Maya Centre, about the digital exclusion challenges their service users face.

After a break in 2021, we were excited to run our Time to Talk workshops at Islington’s primary schools again, facilitated by corporate volunteers. Read more about the success of the workshops, including the report on it.

BIG Alliance is proud to publish the 2021 CoRe Programme Impact Report

Community Survey Results 2021

It’s been an exciting year here at the BIG Alliance, full of fantastic projects and a few changes, too. Find out what we got up to this year as we look forward to our 10th birthday in 2022.

This year, BIG Alliance launched their pilot Fusion Mentoring programme, in partnership with Macquarie Foundation’s Fusion Network. Read more about how the programme supports the young people of Islington here.

In July, teams of Macquarie Group employees and summer interns supported five Islington community organisations with their strategic challenges. Find out more about the programme and read our Evaluation report here.

ELBA and BIG Alliance’s Mentoring Works programme is celebrating the achievements of the 2020-21 Year 10 cohort with a series of 10 Celebration events with our company and school partners, across June and July.

In May 2021, we captured the triumphant return of our Team Challenges in Islington. As part of their annual 'Green Week' initiative, our friends at Euromonitor International encouraged staff to volunteer in person via opportunities sourced by BIG Alliance.

In this short video, we spoke to volunteers and community leaders about the return of Team Challenges.

With the new urgency emerging from all directions, we are working on how we can fit those activities into local carbon net zero and biodiversity gain targets, meeting the goals of both business and local stakeholders, while still involving the community in determining local priorities.

BIG Alliance and ELBA are engaging corporate volunteers to create Ecobricks. — a simple, low-tech solution to put our plastic to good use in short and long term applications. Ecobricks can be reused over and over again and safely secure plastic out of the biosphere to build spaces that enrich our community.

This week is Volunteers’ Week in which the unpaid efforts of people across the country are celebrated. And today, Thursday 3rd June 2021 is the day when we particularly focus on business volunteers.

BIG Alliance is excited to pilot a new digital buddies programme designed to support members of Hillside Clubhouse with basic digital skills. Hillside Clubhouse is an Islington-based mental health rehabilitation project with a focus on mainstream employment, education and social inclusion.

My experience of the difference that mental health services made to my life inspired me to give some of my time to try to help ensure that others that are facing similar circumstances can access support.

BIG Alliance attended VAI’s Wellbeing for All event shining a spotlight on the work that has been carried out to support local residents’ mental wellbeing

Together we can end the stigma of mental health.

Last month we launched the 13th cohort of our annual CoRe programme. Find out more about it here.

This month, The BIG Alliance team caught up with Islington Giving to find out how Islington-based community organisations have been working to address the digital divide in the borough.