Bridgend Farmhouse
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Leadership from Below
​
A Bella Caledonia article that looks at the flourishing of mutual aid groups across Scotland and the potential for sustaining and nurturing these groups beyond the immediate crisis. It includes a section on Bridgend Farmhouse, our initial emergency response and how we are making as much of our services available in appropriate ways for this crisis.

We have reproduced the part about our response to the current below and you can read their full article here
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Bridgend Farmhouse in South Edinburgh is among countless community organisations which have had to think fast and find innovative ways of offering help after their services were rendered impossible to deliver under social distancing guidelines.

In normal times, the farmhouse operates as a community hub for learning, eating and exercise. “It gives people somewhere to go who are socially isolated and it’s an important part of their routine,” interim manager Lynn Houmdi explains. “It was really difficult to have to shut our doors to those people.”

But the team behind Bridgend Farmhouse quickly began planning a new approach, which would centre around meeting an urgent need for food – both among people who had been in food poverty before the crisis, and those who were pushed into poverty or isolation as a result of it. “We were approached by a local chef who was well connected with other chefs, and we recruited a team of volunteer chefs and a packaging and distribution team of catering managers, many of whom have recently lost their jobs.”

This forms part of a partnership with chef Lewis McLachlan’s Empty Kitchen, Full Hearts programme which is working across the city in response to the crisis. There is high demand for the initiative and 80% of the farmhouse’s deliveries have been organised through local community organisations who know the people in their areas and are able to get the food to those in need.

“In the first two weeks we delivered 100 food parcels per day and we are now working towards 300 parcels per day. We just passed 10,000 meals in the first month,” Houmdi says.
Bridgend Farmhouse is already planning the next stage of its response. “We’re going to be delivering services we normally did online, such as open drop-in sessions; we’re looking into ways of providing laptops to people who would be excluded from accessing things like Zoom; and we are working on ways to make bikes available for key workers.”

Beyond this, the organisation is mindful that the present crisis will “worsen a lot of other issues for people in the community” and that it’s essential to start planning now for how to transition from lockdown and find ways to reduce social isolation. This is something Houmdi hopes will be aided by new relationships which are being formed with community groups and people. “While this is a crisis response, a lot of this will have long term benefits and partnership working is a big part of that.”

Houmdi says she is encouraged by the “incredible” support that has been offered by volunteers and from companies in the form of in-kind donations. “I would hate to think that would dissipate after this.”
She adds: “If you think it will it’s going to be hard to get through this time. Our society wasn’t fair, and people were denied things they needed. If we go back to the way things were, then all of this, all these deaths, will have been for nothing.”

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Bridgend Farmhouse, a Community Benefit Society:7683 with Charitable Status: SC048396
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  • Home
    • Our Vision
    • Our Cafe
    • Our Facilities >
      • CafeSpace
      • Kitchen
      • Meeting Room
      • The Bike Hub
      • Workshop3
      • Workshop4
      • Marquee
    • Our News
  • Get Involved
    • Who We Are >
      • Our Board
      • Looking for Directors Trustees
      • Our Team >
        • Claire Wheeler
        • Roz Angus
        • Zoe Murdoch
        • Kevin Morrison
        • Gill Curran
        • Luisa Brown
        • Khalid Bashir
        • Darla Eno
        • Eric Fernandez-Baca
      • Our Projects >
        • Activity Days
        • Bothy Build
        • Community Allotments
        • Community History >
          • PWF Booklet
          • PWF Interviews
          • PWF Videos
          • PWF Museum
          • PWF Images
        • Pride of Place >
          • Craigmillar Castle Park Map
          • Pop-Project-Board
          • Pop-A-Walk-in-the-woods
          • Pop-Geology
          • Pop-Cameron-toll
          • Pop-JS-poem
          • Pop-History-and-WIAT
          • Pop-Faery-doors
        • Previous Projects >
          • Farmhouse Renovation >
            • Workshops Build
          • Bamboo Bikes
          • BIG Acorn Fund >
            • BIG Acorn Projects
          • Real Fast Food
          • Community Cafe 2018
          • Community Cafe 2017
          • Cosmetics Group
          • Food Group 2017
          • Bike Workshop 2017
          • Garden Shelter
          • Artist in Residence
          • Forest Skills
      • Working Groups
      • Our Constitution
      • Our Area Of Benefit >
        • Community organisations
        • Bridgend Virtual Tour
      • Our Funders
    • Contact Us
    • Maillist
    • Drop-in Archive
    • Privacy Policy
  • Our Media
    • Video Gallery >
      • Videos 2013-18
      • Food Stories
    • Publications >
      • Forms and Resources
      • The Story of BIG >
        • Presentations and Podcasts 2020
      • Our Queen's Award
      • Community Consultation 2020-21
      • Bridgend Past and Present
      • Annual Report 2022
      • Annual Report 2021
      • 2020 AGM
      • COVID-19 Food Resilience Response Project final report
      • A community-led emergency response to food precarity
      • Senscot Bulletin May 20
      • healthandcarescotland May 20
      • Bellacaledonia May 20
      • ScotsMag
      • HolyroodMagazine
      • Our Journey
      • Our older documents >
        • AGM2020
        • AGM2019
        • AGM2018
        • AGM2017
    • General Archives >
      • Community Share Issue >
        • Shares FAQs
      • BIG Opening Party
      • Former Staff >
        • Stevie Palmer
        • Sharon Stoddart
        • Wing Yee Li
        • Lynn Houmdi
        • Judy Paul
        • Donna McArdle
        • Hilary Lowson
        • Carol Stobie
        • Graham Harper
      • News and Events
      • Events Archive
      • Other Archived >
        • Become a member
        • BIG Community Calendar
        • Our Pictures-2015-2017
        • Picture Archives-2010-2014
        • BIG Blog 2014