infinite arts
Aston
Anchor Point is a dynamic, one-of-a-kind community outreach and skills-training
centre in Birmingham, a practical, caring response to the complex needs of inner
city lives. Building on Betel UK’s 25-year track record as a national charity
helping the marginalised, homeless and addicted, Anchor Point will address
head-on the hardships of social exclusion, substance dependencies, family
breakdown and unemployment in one of Britain’s most under-resourced urban wards.
The three-fold vision is: to create a thriving community hub that integrates
seven family-friendly businesses, each serving the public, that simultaneously
deliver a range of employment skills and addictions- recovery training all under
one roof. Anchor Point will offer a safe, welcoming environment to residents and
university students of greater Aston where they can flourish. Hundreds will
enjoy an impressive restaurant serving homemade food, drinks and baked goods,
affordable arts performance and fitness training, a children’s softplay arena, a
gender-neutral hair and nail salon, catered banqueting, plus multi-purpose
meeting and conference facilities for hire. All these diverse activities
inter-link, sharing one 40,000-square-foot building just outside the boundary of
Birmingham’s Clear Air Zone. When compared to most other social inclusion models
nationwide, Anchor Point’s multi-purpose skills training sets it apart as truly
exceptional. All seven social enterprises will be staffed by recovering Betel
residents, each a member of our successful, therapeutic, work-based recovery
model. This means that Anchor Point not only promises essential socialising for
scores of city-wide youths and families. But it will also serve as a healing,
restorative workplace, helping men and women to break with substance and welfare
dependencies alike. Together, the businesses will simultaneously train for
future employment more than 60 men and women in the process of rebuilding their
lives and families after years of life-controlling drugs and alcohol addictions,
homelessness and criminal offending. Anchor Point revives the power of local
community. It is a visionary investment in lives where restored men and women,
now clean from addictive substances, re-build confidence and a vitally important
work ethic as they “give back” to others. Inner city neighbours are likewise
enriched, embracing old friends and new relationships in an atmosphere of
belonging, leisure, learning and personal growth. The outcome? A swelling
synergy of people’s potential, as one by one they are encouraged, equipped and
empowered for purposeful new directions.
