Church profile: Banbury Community Church

We’re so grateful for many churches faithfully supporting our work with vulnerable children. One of these is Banbury Community Church (BCC), in Oxfordshire, UK, and they told us why they are passionate about partnering with Viva. Why Viva? We’ve been supporting Viva since 2004 through an initial link with a previous BCC leader. We appreciate […]

Christmas in June: that’s magic!

An Oxfordshire church has raised nearly £1,000 for Viva Christmas Parties by holding an evening that included a combination of magic, comedy, curry and a bit of ukulele. More than 100 people attended the event put on by Grove Free Evangelical Church, who likes to get into the festive spirit earlier than most! Fiona Massie […]

Exploring the hidden curriculum

BY HANNAH BARR Another year and another cohort of young people have completed ‘Find your fire’, Doorsteps’ ten-month programme for helping young people at risk of disengaging identify what they are good at, what they feel passionately about, to attach value to those things, and help them look at ways of developing in them. Sarah […]

Making mental health more visible

BY HANNAH BARR This is Mental Health Awareness Week (14-20 May), with the NSPCC revealing that schools in England made almost 125,000 referrals for specialist help since 2014, with more than half of these coming from primary schools. Across the age spectrum, the stats on mental health struggles look bleak. Last week, British universities said they […]