Monday - Friday 09.00 AM - 5.00 PM
07459829990
Monday - Friday 09.00 AM - 5.00 PM
Culturally Responsive Mental Health Workshop
47 young people.
Delivered by an African mental health practitioner using folklore-based storytelling to reduce stigma.
Initial resistance shifted into curiosity and engagement, with young people requesting follow-up sessions using visual media.
Jewellery Making & Cultural Expression
Young people created personalised jewellery using African beads, connecting identity, wellbeing, and pride in heritage.
Black History Month: Photography & Cultural Storytelling. Community-wide event. Young people documented African culture across Woolwich and Greenwich, developed photographs, and narrated cultural stories.
The event brought together families across races, using food, art, and storytelling to strengthen community understanding.
Afro Hair Braiding Classes
Woolwich Centre Library
60 participants | 70 on waiting list
High-demand skills training with limited space and tools. Parents actively supported delivery, and several mothers became volunteers after seeing the impact.
This demand highlighted the urgent need for a permanent Hair Braiding Academy.
Sewing Skills for Practical Independence
19 young people | Ages 11–16
Responding to parental concerns about repeated clothing repairs, young people learned basic sewing skills.
The workshop improved focus, confidence, and practical independence, with full safeguarding measures in place.
Youth-Led Cooking Skills Workshop
27 young people | 3 days
Designed through a youth poll, participants learned to cook cultural meals, including jollof rice and chicken.
A parent later donated £20 after witnessing her daughter’s confidence and joy at home, stating it was the happiest she had seen her child in months.
Pretty Hearts CIC has supported 297 young people from Black and ethnic Minority group and young people from marginalised backgrounds in the last 12 months across Woolwich and the Royal Greenwich borough through culturally responsive, youth-led programmes.
We are not testing an idea.
We are delivering a working solution.
The question is not whether this work matters.
The question is whether it will be stabilised in time.
Afro Hair Care & Identity Workshops
Woolwich Community Centre Ages 11–18 | 30 participants
We delivered a two-week programme teaching young girls how to care for Afro hair, addressing both identity and financial barriers where families cannot afford repeated salon services.
The programme concluded on International Women’s Day, with mothers invited to celebrate their children’s growth. One young person, aged 14, shared that she avoided school holidays due to being mocked for wearing the same hairstyle throughout term. This programme directly addressed confidence, belonging, and social isolation.
1. Afro Hair Care & Identity Workshops
Woolwich Community Centre Ages 11–18 | 30 participants
We delivered a two-week programme teaching young girls how to care for Afro hair, addressing both identity and financial barriers where families cannot afford repeated salon services.
The programme concluded on International Women’s Day, with mothers invited to celebrate their children’s growth. One young person, aged 14, shared that she avoided school holidays due to being mocked for wearing the same hairstyle throughout term. This programme directly addressed confidence, belonging, and social isolation.
Young Black people in Woolwich are navigating racial abuse, social isolation, and cultural disconnection at school and in public spaces.
During school holidays, these pressures intensify. Parents are working. Services are stretched. Many young people are left indoors, disengaged, or drawn back into unsafe environments.
Pretty Hearts CIC exists because doing nothing has consequences.
Our work is shaped directly by young people. Every programme we deliver is informed through polls, conversations, and lived experience. Young people decide what support they need, and we respond with structure, safeguarding, and care.
If delivery stops: The risks do not pause because funding has not been secured. What Sustainability Looks Like We are not seeking rapid expansion. We are seeking stability and continuity. Funding now would allow us to: This is about reinforcing a functioning model, not experimenting with a new one. Why This Is The Moment What…
Despite demonstrated delivery, Pretty Hearts CIC has been repeatedly disqualified from grant funding due to income turnover thresholds that disadvantage small, grassroots organisations serving young people from Black and ethnic Minority group and young people from marginalised backgrounds. We are required to demonstrate financial scale before being trusted with the funding required to build it.…
Across the UK, funding frameworks increasingly require evidence of turnover, reserves, and prior income before organisations become eligible for grants. While designed to reduce financial risk, these requirements disproportionately affect small, Black-led community organisations working at grassroots level. For the past two years, Pretty Hearts CIC has experienced this barrier directly. We have delivered programmes…
297 young people supported because waiting was not an option.
In Woolwich and across Royal Greenwich, Black children and young people face racial abuse, social isolation, and exclusion from opportunities.
Pretty Hearts CIC delivers culturally responsive, youth-led programmes that meet real needs, not theoretical ones.
