Blog | Middlesbrough Voluntary Development Agency

The Christmas spirit is still alive and kicking

2 December 2020 - 10:12pm

It all started with an innocent question posted on our Teams chat by Kelly Baxter who works on our We Care You Care project who had been asked by a Kinship support group if she knew of any help this year for children’s Christmas presents. That set off all the staff at MVDA who got busy looking into the support on offer and different ways of potentially helping.

Let's work together to get basic digital access for Middlesbrough residents

24 June 2020 - 1:48pm

Guest blog by Sue Kearney, CEO at The Hope Foundation

Digital connectivity and access is a social justice and social inclusion issue. COVID-19 has demonstrated the basic lack of access for many Middlesbrough residents leading to loneliness and isolation at this time. The move towards more digital services (health, GP’s shopping online) means that local people will become further and increasingly disadvantaged due to one or all of the following

Is COVID-19 the great leveller?

31 March 2020 - 1:45pm

The link between the Marmot Review 10 years on and COVID-19 - deprivation, poverty and health inequalities.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said people (loved ones) are going to die due to the pandemic of COVID-19. The media, politicians and health experts have implied the effects will be across all strata of society, but is this disingenuous?

Guest blog: Reporting Anti-LGBT+ Hate Crime

14 October 2019 - 1:34pm

Guest blog by Andrew Towers, LGBT Action Development Worker, Hart Gables

Last month I was on a bus on Stockton High Street. We were parked at a bus stop. I shouldn’t judge on appearances but the two people who were sitting right in front of me looked like a respectable young couple. They were smartly dressed and soft-spoken. They were laughing between themselves, looking at the woman’s mobile phone. Then they lifted the phone and took a picture through the bus window.

Guest blog: Is one week to mark hate crime enough?

14 October 2019 - 1:27pm

Guest blog by Sara Mirsalehi, Operational Manager- Linx

12th-16th October is marked as a week of raising awareness of Hate Crime.

Is this enough? Do we as services only deal with Hate crime incidents during this week? You, of course know the answer yourself.