through The People’s Projects and its founder Stewart Roberts, estimates more than three hundred volunteers have performed an amazing thirty-five thousand haircuts across the UK.
Winner of 2017's The People’s Projects, Haircuts4Homeless has been able to grow to more than forty sites around the country including Dublin, Glasgow, Birmingham and Belfast. They tend to operate in shelters and community centres where volunteers go every month to see regular clients.
Haircuts4Homeless' Stewart, an experienced hairdresser of 40 years, says he never thought the project would expand beyond London.
Now there's an opportunity for you to join to decide where some of that funding should go and help projects near you get up to £50,000 of National Lottery funding through the initiative in 2018.
There is £3million up for prize money, so to help a project near you click here to vote now.
This is a partnership between the Big Lottery Fund, ITV, STV and The National Lottery, which gives the public a say in awarding National Lottery funding to assist ordinary communities to develop.
Salon owner Stewart set up the community group in Romford, Essex, after seeing something similar in the United State.
He said:
"I saw this guy doing homeless makeovers in America so the next time I was going to the Salvation Army shelter to help out I thought I’d bring my scissors."
"It went down really well with the homeless guys coming in and the team at the shelter were great at promoting it, so the next thing I knew I had Ilford phoning me and asking if I could pop down there."
"I had a few hairdresser friends who said they’d like to join in and it really started."
"I’m nearly 12 years sober myself so I do a lot of work with people with addiction problems."
"Homeless people can sometimes be suspicious of people because they're used to there being an ulterior motive for helping them."
"But cutting hair is the most hands-on profession, you're really in someone's space, and hairdressers are great communicators so people feel easily at home with them."
"The funding was amazing because it allowed us to expand, and to get kits into all our groups so volunteers don’t have to take their own equipment with them."
"A haircut is a superficial thing to most people, but so much of a person's self-esteem is tied into how they look so when you've given a homeless person a haircut you realise it’s about a lot more than just surface appearance."
"It's awful to hear a human tell you they feel invisible most of the time, but then you cut their hair and they have tears in their eyes and they tell you you’ve made their day, and there’s nothing quite like that."Time2Shine is a project set up a year ago by Cornwall Accessible Activities Program, a charity formed by parents of children with additional needs in 2013.
CAAP provides and subsidises activities for 0-18- year-olds (and hopes to create a scheme for disabled young people from 16-25) and received £46,650 in National Lottery funding through The People's Projects to establish Time2Shine which gives young people the chance to run events and choose and organise activities for others.
Founder Sandy Lawrence says:
"Our aim is to give Shiners the reigns, to unlock their potential and help them to develop skills to find employment. Given the right support people will flourish."Fitness coaches Tom Scaife and Gareth Bartlett first had the idea for Elderfit when they were asked to come up with exercise sessions for a care home.
The friends began going into residential homes in Cardiff and getting residents involved in classes to improve their strength and balance, and reduce their risk of falling, using a variety of techniques, including mobility exercises, resistance bands and hand/leg weights.
Securing funding from National Lottery through The People's Projects last year meant that Elderfit could take on more instructors and expand its regular classes from two to 17.
It also allowed Tom and Gareth to set up a training programme for instructors, to enable them to franchise Elderfit out so care homes can run sessions themselves.
A third element, also supported by The People's Projects win, has been a DVD for older people who are housebound and can’t come to classes. That is due for release soon and has already been endorsed by Public Health Wales, the National Falls Taskforce and National Commissioner for Wales.
Tom said:
"Falls are one of the biggest health hazards for older people, and one of the biggest costs to the NHS, so our community and care home exercise sessions are really targeted at that. But there's also a huge social element to them which is why people love them so much."Vote now for a good cause near you to be awarded funds at thepeoplesprojects.org.uk Terms and Conditions apply - see website for details. Voting closes at midday on Monday, April 30, and winners will be revealed on Thursday, May 3 during ITV regional news programmes at 6pm. For Scotland regions, results will be shown on STV2’s Live at Five show.
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