Supporting mums and under-fives in temporary accommodation in Newham. Registered Charity Number 1176267.
Last week Westfield treated our mums and minis to a delicious afternoon tea to celebrate the new Magpie Project building. The Westfield team welcomed mums, served cakes, poured drinks, cleared plates, played with children and held babies!
Everyone left smiling and very full, as mama D said we felt “highly hosted”. We loved welcoming Westfield to our new building and celebrating our 4+ years of partnership.
We have spent the last week unpacking and getting our new space ready to welcome our mums and minis back into. Our café area is fully stocked with new cutlery and crockery, tables set out with our beautiful colourful chairs very kindly donated by OMK and we have set up baby change areas. Toys that felt huge in our old building now feel tiny in our big new play space. Everything is still a work in progress and we are so excited to work and collaborate with our mums and minis to curate the space together.
We couldn’t have done it without our amazing volunteers and everyone who donated something or contributed their time.
Mama R found herself and her family in a hotel in Romford during the holy month last year. Fasting from dawn to dusk, obviously means preparing and eating meals at times which are not convenient for restaurants or shops. The family were not allowed to store any food in their hotel room at all. This created an impossible situation.
Please understand that nothing has changed since last year – so many of our beautiful Muslim families will be facing this exact set of circumstances for the next month.
Others, living in home office provided contingency hotels will not be offered a hot IFTAR meal all month, instead they will have sandwiches left for them to eat at the time of breaking their fast.
We believe that everyone has a human right to be able to undertake their religious observance unhindered. For hundreds this holy month – their housing or home office accommodatio will make it impossible.
Mama R
‘The thing I suffered most from was the difficulty of finding restaurants for halal food.’
As there is no way for our families, to cook or store food in their hotel rooms. Each meal must be bought pre-prepared outside on the day. The financi8al expense incurred can reach an additional £200 a week, but on top of that – for our muslim families placed in areas without a significant Muslim population – that means that culturally and religiously appropriate pre-prepared or takeaway food is hard to come by.
Mama R.
‘The hotel was in the Romford area. Restaurants closed early and breaking our fast during Ramadan was late.
It was forbidden to take food to the rooms.
This meant that the whole family, including small children had to leave their ‘home’ to eat each meal.
. We had to eat outside’ she says.
Mama R.
‘We would go out to Tesco. As that was the only store that is open [at that time of night] to buy cheese and toast, and this is how we break our fast after a long day of fasting.
Mama R.
‘At that time, I was breastfeeding my child. I needed a lot of vitamins and protein. This is what I would have gotten if I were at home and cooking during Ramadan.
It was a very difficult experience. I feel sad when I remember it.’
To make sure that families won’t have to face another Ramadan like this – please sign and share our petition to make sure no children are housed without a kitchen. Just clicking below.
As we return rested from our winter break, we can look back at the success of our Christmas event! We hosted our Christmas giveaway across 2 days, which featured presents and a stocking for every child, a present for mums and a hamper for each family. Despite the torrential rain more than 215 families joined us, mums filled their bags and buggies with gifts and goodies while minis drank hot chocolate! There was even an appearance from Mother Christmas herself, along with her elf helpers!
We got to show off our amazing new song ‘The places you’ll go’ which was written and recorded with London Rhymes, it didn’t quite make Christmas number one, but we are very proud of it!.
We danced and sang and ate lots of delicious food provided by our amazing partners Community food Enterprise and City Harvest.
The support we received from the community and our partners this year was phenomenal, we had more than 400 children’s presents, 200 mums presents, and 280 food hampers donated. For this we have to thank Wanstead WI and Westfield for the presents for our mums and Hasbro, Solotech at ABBA Voyage, Bancroft Rugby Club, and The Wanstead Charity for all the gifts for our minis. Our amazing local bookshop Newham Bookshop also curated a selection of books for us using community donations and 100 books from our partners Discover, Enabled Living and a community member also funded books. All the books were put into stockings handmade by our amazingly talented quilting volunteers and given out to every child by Mother Christmas.
We are so lucky to have so many lovely volunteers, who joined us the day before to sort, wrap and age label all the presents. As this was going on a constant flow of hampers arrived from members of the community. Their support continued across our giveaway days as volunteers helped to distribute presents, give out nappies and serve hot chocolate to our Magpie families. A big thankyou to the volunteers who joined us from our partners Papier, Solotech at ABBA Voyage, Discover and Hadley. A special shoutout to Enabled Living who became elves for the days! We really could not have done it without you all!
Once every half term we pause our busy stay and play sessions for a week to host our Clothes Club event. The Clothes club, gives our mums the opportunity to ‘shop’ for clothes and coats for their minis, and some essential toiletries.
We want the event to not only address the practical needs of our families but to give them a dignified experience where they can exercise choice, so we work to ensure each family has a wide range of new and barely worn clothes to choose from. Our aim is to make this a relaxed and enjoyable shopping experience where the mums are free to be as fussy as they want!
At this Clothes club we also provided each child over 1 with a £40 Clarks voucher, we choose to do this so they can get a well fitted and comfortable pair of shoes for their growing feet. We think all our children deserve to have new and comfortable shoes, and we have a horror of inappropriate, second hand or broken shoes on our beloved mini’s feet.
In November we had more than 125 families come to Clothes club, this would not have been possible without support from our partners and volunteers. We are very fortunate to collaborate with amazing organisations like, Little village who generously provided us with 30 bags of quality checked winter clothes and Community Food Enterprise who sourced us 100s of tote bags our mums could pack their shopping in. We also want to say a huge thankyou to Irons foodbank for providing us with sanitary items to give out to our mums, which are so often a forgotten necessity.
And not to forget all our amazing volunteers both Magpie regulars and from Papier, who meticulously sorted and quality-checked public donations. Their hard work ensured that the items were folded and presented beautifully, ready for our mums to explore and choose from!
The children were also involved, books were given out to everyone and healthy refreshments provided!
If you would like to donate great quality clothes to our next clothes club here’s how.
If you would like to buy new clothes for our minis please get in touch.
Or if you are a football fan, do go along to a Clapton Community Football Club match and donate to our hygiene bank there.
Every year we organise a summer party to celebrate all we’ve achieved in the last year and most importantly all our lovely mums and minis. This is a final hurrah before we then close for August. At The Magpie Project, as part of our trauma-informed ethos, we ensure that the spaces we create are safe, so that mums and minis are free to relax, bond, and have fun together.
The summer party is a time and place for us all to come together, play, eat, and celebrate the year. In the months leading up to it, staff and volunteers are working hard to create interesting, engaging and fun activities for our mums and minis – this looks like henna, glitter tattoos, lucky dip, flag decorating, as well as a ‘our year at the magpie project’ gallery wall!
For the summer party, we go all out – taking over Forest Lane Park to house our stalls and entertainment stage. Stalls this year comprised of the amazing Kay Rowe Nursey and Children’s Centre, Games, Crafts, and Merch. Our Entertainment had Bubbles, London Rhymes singing, and Discover Story. This year we made school-style lunches for minis, and had local family owned restaurant Aromas create delicious Halal Meat and Vegan plates for mums and guests.
Despite the rain, our mums were not deterred, and came dressed to the nines to play and enjoy delicious food with Magpie Mums and staff. The summer party is also open to all Forest Gate locals, we appreciate your support as it helps us continue the important work we do.
We can’t thank our summer party superstar volunteers and partners enough for always showing up and making the day come rain or shine so special. Special shout-outs to our Food manager, Cat, for making 200 epic school-style lunches for our minis, Aromas for catering the most tasty food (our Mums look forward to eating your meals every year), Kay Rowe for running a stall and all their important work, London Rhymes and Discover for ensuring Mums and Minis have a blast and entertained for hours, and amazing Newham Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz and Trustee Radihika Byron for visiting.
Lastly, we are so thankful for all those we partnered with this year: Newham Nurture, FCA, Black Swan Finance, Enabled Living, Papier, Little Village, Children’s Salon, Hasboro, 52lives, Knitforpeace, Bethany Williams London, Young V&A, Flying Seagull Circus, Forest Gate WI, Tindersticks, Newham Bookshop, Clapton CFC, Astoria Fire and Security, Praxis, Shelter, Westfield Stratford London, Discover Story Centre, Forest Gate WI, Bookstart, Lush, Number 8 Forest Gate, City Harvest, Health Visitors, Newham Public Health Team, Morris and Co. Architects, Laura Jackson, Irons Foodbank, UCL, Louise Klarnet, Forest Gate Community Garden, London Rhymes, Bancroft Rugby Club, Craft Council, UEL, RAMFEL, Project 17, Maternity Action, Bonny Downs, Newham Food Alliance, Newham Children Centre’s particularly Kay Rowe Nursey, Perinatal Mental Health Team, Acorn Midwives Team at Newham, Alternatives Trust, Museum of Homelessness, Hestia, Ashiana Network, LBWP, Care4Calais, The Unity Project, Tower Hamlets Law Centre, Bethany Prince at Early Notifications / CNDS, Streetwise Opera, Just Life, Stephen Timms MP, Mayor of Newham Rokhsana Fiaz, The Newham Community, Gainsborough Quilters, and our play and formfilling volunteers, drivers, community members who make up hampers for our families every christmas.
You are the village it takes to raise our children, and e couldn’t make the impact we do, without all of you!
Each week, our play sessions have a theme guiding our activities and learning. Our themes range from animals and mud play, to seasonal celebrations like Eid or Christmas. This week we celebrated the beginning of summer with our Pool Party theme. We can always count on our amazing Play Lead to come up with the most elaborate ideas and ingenuous ways to explore the themes; creating activities that foster learning, connection, and fun for our mums and minis.
This week activities included smoothie making and splashing around in paddling pools. Inside our centre mums and minis got to try all different fun combinations of fruit and even some spinach to create delicious, healthy, and cooling smoothies. Whilst outside, an assortment of paddling pools were set out on a blue tarp, creating an epic pool and splash zone. The carpark disappeared behind some tropical island themed shower curtains hanging between two trees. Chairs were positioned as sun-loungers, and voila – we were no longer in sunshine and showers UK, but on an idyllic island filled with children’s joy! Our minis had so much fun splashing around, and dipping different objects into the water – what would sink and what would swim?!
A special thanks to our lovely donators, allowing us to provide swimsuits for any children who wanted to take a dip.
Later in the afternoon, our wonderful partners at Tinder Sticks did a workshop teaching our mums and minis all about birds and nest building. They also taught natural bracelet making, and plant artwork – checkout some of our minis creations below:
No matter what mums and minis have experienced in the past, or what they are facing everyday under the UK’s hostile environment, we at the Magpie Project firmly believe #allourchildren deserve to experience safety, love, and joy. Play, including pool parties, is the ultimate act of resistance!
“‘Our collaboration with Bethany Williams London has been the most beautiful, generous and creative thing that we could have ever dreamt of. It has got the voice of our mums and minis in to places we would never dream of – the catwalks of London Fashion Week, the pages of Vogue, the Design Museum, and now the permanent collection of the Young V&A. Graphics were created in collaboration with artist Melissa Kitty Jarram in the depth of lockdown through zoom meetings where mums and minis drew each other. You can see their likenesses in the fabrics” – Jane Williams, CEO and Founder of The Magpie Project
This weekend the newly re-named Young V&A (previously the Museum of Childhood) opened its doors to the public, boasting refreshed collections and displays. The Young V&A is a free national museum located in Bethnal Green with displays, collections, and interactive spaces, co-designed with children and young people, that explore the creativity and experiences of children. This revamped Young V&A titles itself a ‘doing museum’ with sensory playscapes, imagination playground construction zone, performance and story stage and design studio for all ages to get stuck in and enjoy!
The Young V&A showcases 2,000 objects relating to art, design, and performance including two sets of mother and child outfits and lunchbox inspired handbag designed and created by Bethany Williams. Bethany Williams is a fashion designer, humanitarian and artist, creating cutting-edge fashion with ethnical manufacturing and social responsibility. She gives textiles a second chance through refashioning whilst working with social projects and communities to create her garments, as well as giving a percentage of her profits to charity.
For her ‘All Our Children’ Spring/Summer 2021 collection of outfits for mothers and children in collaboration with us at the Magpie Project, Bethany took inspiration from the V&A children’s archives, in particular the skeleton suit and a Boy’s first suit, some of the first garments designed for play. This inspiration is evident in her creation of a tailored skeleton suit and the flounced dresses and pantalettes shown below.
A predominant theme across the Young V&A, Bethany Williams and The Magpie Project is an emphasis on play, creativity, co-creation and design between children and adults. #Allourchildren are all our responsibility; and deserving of environments that foster safety, love, joy and creativity. We hope you visit the Young V&A and enjoy viewing and interacting with our collaboration with Bethany Williams.
Every half term instead of our normal play and casework sessions we run a Clothes Club – where Magpie mums ‘shop’ for clothes, shoes, toiletries and equipment. We work really hard to ensure our Clothes Club is a calm and enjoyable experience for our Magpie Mums. Read below to see how we achieve this and what our Magpie Mums think!
We work with amazing partners like Little Village, Children’s Salon, Hasboro, 52lives, Knitforpeace and Enabled Living to guarantee we have top quality new and barely-worn children and adult clothes, shoes, toiletries and equipment delivered to us ready for our mums and minis to shop from. Additionally, our lovely volunteers sort through any donations from the public for quality control. Our regular volunteers plus special volunteers from FCA, Black Swan Finance and Papier work diligently to make inviting displays of the clothes by age.
Mums are welcomed and allocated groups to shop in and given tokens for themselves and each child under-5. They then enter the hall and shopping begins! This process ensures mums have a positive and dignified shopping experience.
From newborn baby-grows to occasion and partywear there is always something to choose from. At our latest June Clothes Club we handed out more than 700 items of clothing to 133 Mums and 175 Minis!
Here’s some testimony from our Magpie Mums:
“At other clothes banks there is fighting and everyone is sad. Here the tokens and timed slots made it a lovely experience” – Mum Q
“Thank you for all you did, my mini is very happy with his clothes. You made me feel rich today!” – Mum A
Play is an important part of life, development, and freedom! #Allourchildren deserve to be loved, supported, and experience the joy and creativity of play. Through play, motor and social skills are developed, as well as a sense of joy and community.
This week our amazing Play Lead had organised a ‘Messy Kitchen Play’ session – trays filled with mud, sand and water, with pots, pans, utensils, and toy animals to dirty up and then clean. Not only does this session help with hand-eye coordination, hand dexterity, and focused play, the mud, sand, and water provide great sensory play and experience – engaging for all children!
Messy Play can bring up feelings of stress and worry, especially for our Mums in confined and insecure living conditions. However, listening and addressing those fears, providing protective overalls, and easily accessible toilets and water provide some comfort – ultimately allowing mums and minis to engage in Messy Kitchen Play together <3
As always super grateful for our wonderful volunteers who show up week in week out to engage and connect with our mums and minis, and our incredible partners like the Flying Seagull Circus who always bring the best energy and get the best laughs !
“In my experience, the first thing was to open an online account. Some online banks will take a biometric card. When you download the app, you immediately get your account number and sort code, so you can apply for universal credit. Then, I applied for a provisional license. You have to be careful when you apply to both of these. Make sure you confirm your universal credit first, before you send your ID for your provisional license, because it takes a few weeks for them to send it back and you won’t get paid until you send your ID to universal credit” Magpie Mums
Proof of address is something that proves where you live. It’s generally a document from a trusted source that has recently been sent to your home address.
Government-issued letters
Company-issued letters
Proof of address documents can be split into two types:
Remember to always use printed bills and statements which are not older than 3 months
“Proof of address is very challenging, especially when you’ve just got status. You’re probably not in accommodation yet so haven’t had any bills or anything. You might have to wait for a bill. One bank accepted a housing letter but not all banks would accept that.”
“Try and find your old letters. You never know when you will need them. Don’t throw away important papers (anything that can
prove who you are and what you’ve been up to) and keep them somewhere. I needed proof of address for the past 5 years. Imagine if I was th
rowing things away. Keep letters for hospital appointments and from school etc.”
Magpie Mums say:
Proof of identity is something that proves who you are. It will most likely be an official document with your full name, date of birth and a photo.
Examples of proof of identity:
Once you receive legal permission to stay in the UK, you will usually get a BRP. Your BRP includes your name, your date and place of birth, your fingerprints, a photo of you, your immigration status and information about your access to public funds.
If you lose your BRP or it gets stolen, you must report it and apply for a replacement within 3 months. If you don’t do this, you could be fined up to £1,000 and made to leave the UK.
You can use a valid passport as proof of identity. If your passport has expired and you want to renew it, your country’s consulate should be able to assist you.
You may be able to use a PDL as a proof of identity or address. You can apply for a PDL online which costs £34. After a successful application, you will get your provisional license and your identity documents posted back to you separately. Find out more here.
Magpie Mums Say: “Make sure you confirm your universal credit first, before you send your ID for your provisional license, because it takes a few weeks for them to send it back.”
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