Sortified: The power of community action at times of need

Set up in 2011, Sortified in Lincolnshire is an award-winning, not-for-profit social enterprise that aims to make things better for people and communities.

Using funding awarded by The National Lottery Community Fund, we will be working closely with people and communities with Eastern European heritage across South Lincolnshire, listening to what the issues are, and finding solutions that help people to help themselves.

Of course, our priority at the moment is to work with people escaping the Russian invasion, who are arriving in Lincolnshire from Ukraine all the time. Whilst they are being supported by host families, many refugees want to find ways of interacting with their host communities, as well as supporting each other. We will be working directly with refugees and host families - alongside key partners - to listen to wants, needs, and aspirations, and to help create new community groups run by refugees that can support other refugees.

We know that people are struggling to work out how to get support, or how to put together a community group that provides support. There are lots of issues around understanding how systems work, language barriers, and other blockers that get in the way. Sortified has a wealth of experience in helping people set up successful community groups, charities and social enterprises, so we thought that we could give people a bit of help to set up their own groups.

Our overall aim is to help people to help themselves and each other, and we are confident that through this project we will see new community organisations grow and thrive.

We also want to help some of the organisations that are already operating to support refugees and victims of the Ukraine conflict. We are currently working with our friends at Boxes of Hope to support their development, planning, and to make sure they can thrive. Boxes of Hope are an organisation set up in the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine with the aim of collecting and distributing aid from the UK to Ukraine.

We have been able to act as an extra pair of hands for Boxes of Hope, helping them to develop policies and procedures, and we are now helping them develop the financial strategy they need to find ongoing funding. The added bonus of working with Boxes of Hope is that they have introduced us to a whole community of people from Ukraine. We are now working with them to develop new community organisations that will help Ukrainian refugees in South Lincolnshire to help new arrivals, alongside other members of our local communities.

This exciting project is in its very early days, and we are really excited to work with people arriving from Ukraine, and other people already in the UK with Eastern European heritage. Our overall aim is to help people to help themselves and each other, and we are confident that through this project we will see new community organisations grow and thrive. None of this would be possible without the folk who play the National Lottery, so thank you to everyone who supports projects like this, and all the other projects helping people from Ukraine here in the UK.