Celebrating success for CReART Collective CIC

What a successful end to 2025 for CReART Collective CIC! At the beginning of October, they learned that they had been successful in securing funding through Thinking About Business 2.0, a joint initiative of the UK Government, Dudley MBC and the West Midlands Combined Authority. This aims to support communities across the borough who face barriers to accessing mainstream business start-up support.

CReART have contracted with the council to work with women from migrant and asylum-seeking backgrounds, helping them to overcome barriers such as language, cultural difference and a lack of confidence. This will draw directly on the experience they have gained over the last five years of providing a safe and welcoming environment where women can build skills, access well-being support, and integrate into their new community. Many participants engage in volunteering opportunities, develop practical skills, and prepare for employment or self-employment while awaiting their immigration status.

Building on this experience, CReART will deliver a tailored sewing and digital skills program aimed at empowering women. The eight-week course will teach participants to use digital sewing machines to create items for sale, both at the community centre and online. Alongside practical sewing lessons, they will develop digital literacy skills, learning to use social media platforms and online tools to market their creations. By combining creativity with entrepreneurship, the program equips participants with the confidence and resources to explore future small business opportunities.

The program will culminate in a community exhibition where participants will showcase their creations, demonstrating their growth and achievements. This initiative continues a commitment to creating social and economic opportunities for underserved women, helping them gain confidence, develop valuable skills, and contribute to the local economy and community.

We worked with Marlene from CReART to develop and strengthen her tender document and were really pleased when she told us, she had been successful.

“I want to thank you for your help in reviewing the bid for the council contract. I followed all the steps, and I’m happy to share that I won the bid!

Thank you again for your support. I really appreciate it!”

There was further good news at the end of November when they found out they had been successful in the application to the National Lottery Community Fund’s Reaching Communities programme.

The Holistic Community Care Project, a three-year project to tackle mental health inequalities and the wider social factors that impact wellbeing for black, migrant and asylum-seeking communities in Dudley. Building on the success of their Black Healing Hub, the project represents a significant step forward in providing long-term, culturally sensitive support rooted in lived experience and community leadership.

The project will deliver a comprehensive programme of mental health and wellbeing support for displaced and marginalised women, combining trauma-informed therapy with creative, non-verbal approaches such as movement, music and storytelling. Alongside this, group-based psychoeducation workshops will address internalised stigma around mental health, helping participants better understand their wellbeing and feel more confident accessing support. Together, these approaches aim to reduce isolation, improve emotional resilience and support recovery.

Recognising the growing impact of digital exclusion on health, the project will provide digital skills training for women, focused on using the NHS App and managing health online. In parallel, the project will establish a digital advocacy platform led by young black people, using podcasts, interviews and documentary-making to share lived experiences of health inequality and influence Dudley’s health and social care policy.

The project has been designed and will be delivered by people who share the lived experiences of those they support, it creates safe spaces for healing while amplifying voices that are often excluded from decision-making. Through strong partnerships with health services, social prescribers and creative organisations, CReART aims not only to improve individual wellbeing, but to help shape fairer, more inclusive systems of care across Dudley.

Again, we worked with Marlene to develop a strong application, providing feedback on several iterations before it was submitted. Knowing how competitive the Reaching Communities programme is we were delighted when she shared that CReART has been successful.

“I’m thrilled to share that I have successfully secured the funding from the National Lottery’s Reaching Communities fund”.

I asked Marlene what this grant award means for CReART and the people they work with; “Securing this three-year grant from The National Lottery Community Fund is a pivotal milestone for us. Over the next year, our aim is to transform this funding into tangible community support through the launch of The Holistic Community Care Network project. This investment enables us to go beyond crisis intervention and address the root causes of racial and health inequalities. It empowers underserved communities to advocate for themselves and promotes essential policy improvements within our health institutions.“

On top of these funding success stories, it was great to see CReART be nominated in and go on to win the Cultural Connections category at our 2025 Community Action awards, further testimony to the difference that Marlene and her team make to Dudley’s diverse communities.

Here’s to a 2026 filled with strong project delivery and much more of that difference-making!

You can find out more about CReART here