Listening to seldom-heard voices: the Togetherness Café in Redbridge
The Togetherness Café, delivered by Blossom Group ASA CIC with support from Healthwatch Redbridge's Community Cash Fund, ran over 10 weeks in Redbridge, bringing together residents from South Asian, African, and Afro-Caribbean communities to connect, share experiences, and access practical health and wellbeing support.
More than 200 community members took part across the sessions. The project reached people who often find it hardest to engage with health services — including many who said they had felt invisible to those services for years.
Practical support where it was needed most
From week five, the project introduced a one-to-one advice service, offering support in Urdu, Punjabi, Arabic, and Somali. Over 38 individuals were helped with everything from registering with a GP or dentist, to navigating the NHS App, understanding health letters, and completing benefit forms. For many participants, this kind of accessible, culturally competent support simply hadn't been available to them before.
What the community told us
The project also gathered feedback from participants about their experiences of local health services. The picture that emerged was one of real unmet need — particularly around mental health, digital access, and feeling respected and understood by services.
Participants spoke about feeling isolated, struggling to reach services by phone, and lacking confidence navigating a system that didn't always feel designed for them. By the end of the project, some participants were independently managing their own appointments — a meaningful shift in confidence and capability.
The value of being heard
Perhaps the most striking finding was the simplest: 100% of participants asked for the Café to continue beyond its initial 10 weeks. That level of demand speaks for itself.
At Healthwatch Redbridge, we believe that understanding the experiences of people who are often seldom heard is essential to making health and care services work better for everyone. Projects like the Togetherness Café show what's possible when communities are given the space and support to speak up.
We're grateful to Shahid Mahmood and the team at Blossom Group ASA CIC for their commitment to this work, and to the community members who shared their experiences so openly.
The Togetherness Café was funded through the Healthwatch Redbridge Community Cash Fund.
