Bolton Destitution Project

17/03/2026

Art Workshop At DP - A Great Experience: Over the past few months, DP has had the pleasure of partnering with Nadeem of the Refugee Art Alliance to offer a 6-week Art workshop for our service users. The sessions were held at the Wednesday Drop-in during the afternoon. Nadeem was assisted by his colleague Maleesa. Find out more > https://boltondp.org/art-workshop-at-dp-a-great-experience

12/03/2026

Our team was very much saddened by the news that former Drop-in Coordinator at DP, Paul Barnes, passed away after a short illness.

Paul first joined us in early 2018 as a volunteer. We then welcomed him as an employee in what was a new post of Drop-in Coordinator. He served diligently in this capacity from Sept 2019 to May 2023.

https://boltondp.org/paul-our-former-drop-in-coordinator-gone-too-soon

19/01/2026

DP celebrates Christmas 2025!

What better way to give you a window into our end of year Christmas party than to share that week's briefing written by several of our wonderful team of volunteers and staff. Enjoy!

Briefing for the DP Drop-in, Wednesday December 10th, 2025

It was indeed a very exciting Christmas Party Drop-in at DP. THANK YOU TO THE WHOLE TEAM FOR THEIR DEDICATION AND PREPARATIONS!

Main Reception - Jenny (Volunteer)
A busy day as usual yesterday, with 92 Service Users registered, including 9 new ones. There were three young children. The day went quickly, with Narjess mainly on the laptop, and we passed on people with queries to Casework as usual. The early morning queue was dealt with reasonably quickly and Aysha and Mags encouraged service users to form an orderly queue inside the building. After we had cleared up, we had a meeting with Mags and Abdul to look at ways to cope better with congestion at the reception desk and how we might take turns sharing the various aspects of our work.

And we also found time during the days to taste some of the Christmas goodies!

Casework - Shaheda (Senior Caseworker)
The day began at 8.30 am with a festive atmosphere in the casework department, everyone embraced the sprit with Christmas hats and I ended up with a reindeer headband!

After setting up casework département and once our 9.30am meeting finished, we began with casework. I saw 16 service users, including 4 of which had appointments booked in to see me. Some cases were complex, and we experienced a few delays due to late arrivals. In addition to the usual casework, I also assisted with home office interview advice, work permit application, asylum cases being refused and eviction notices served. Despite being busy, the festive atmosphere helped keep everyone calmer and more positive.

We closed our department earlier than usual at lunchtime as we joined the Christmas party!
We noticed that food room was still open due to high demand and Fiona ended up helping in the food room! Thank you, Fiona!

After lunch we resumed our work in the casework department, continuing to see walk in service users and additional appointment.

Food Room - Pam (Volunteer)
70 food parcels were given out today in the Food Room. The queue was non-stop throughout the day. Everyone one was given a chocolate bar and a packet of tissues as an extra treat.
Thank you to all the volunteers for providing a wonderful abundance of treats to be served with the mid-day meal. Each person received a cake, tangerine and packet of crisps, plus the usual mid-day meal provided by Alan and his staff.

It was uplifting to see so many happy smiling faces throughout the course of the day.

English Language Classes
Janet (Volunteer) - This morning, I had four service users in the class and Mary took one of them to teach in the photocopier room. With the three SUs I covered different kinds of leisure activities, using a story and a worksheet to reinforce the vocabulary. Lots of conversation took place.
Ian P (Volunteer) - Hello Everyone. This was necessarily a brief lesson of about 20 minutes. We played find the animal by a process of asking a series of questions. With varying degrees of assistance with reading and pronunciation, each SU asked a question to reduce the pack of animals down to the last one left standing: the rabbit! Then we dispersed to enjoy the feast and festivities in the Main Hall!

Operations - Abdul (Manager)
The preparations of the games were top-notch - plenty of the Christmas Hats - thank you Sarah! David and Ahmed as Santa were in the spotlight! Snack tables were full of varieties and taste - thank you Pam for organising the tables and those who contributed! I dealt with three ICT matters after the lunch and was grateful at our meeting for the inputs by our reception team to further manage the build-up of SUs by the entrance.

Main Hall - Ian T (Volunteer) - I think this must have been the greatest number of people to have turned up for the Christmas party for a few years. Alan prepared a very nice hot meal as usual and there was only just enough to feed everyone. We all had a great time and enjoyed the games provided by Sarah and Elsie, and the appearance of Santa, thanks to Ahmed and David. Irina brought in some festive pictures for children to colour-in.

WISHING ALL OUR SUPPORTERS, FUNDERS, SERVICE USERS AND WELL WISHERS ALL THE BEST FOR 2026!

16/12/2025

10/03/2025

Year 6 Student Bella Shares Her Creative Work With All At DP: In February, Year 6 student and Head Girl, Bella, came to visit us with her Mum and Grandma. In class at her school (she attends St John's Bromley Cross) she wrote a poem and painted a picture all about the plight faced by those seeking asylum and was keen to share it with the service users and team members at DP.

What a great job she did of presenting her work! Everybody listened as she and her Mum recited the poem and shared the picture. They then gave her a round of applause. Reflecting on the day, Food Room lead volunteer Kath said: "What a brave girl!" We will have her work on display at DP.

Isabella's family have been long term supporters of DP and its work.

10/03/2025

The Loss of a Dear Supporter: Recently we heard of the death of Sister Christine. She had been a committed supporter of the Destitution Project since its formation in January 2015.

Sister Christine was an exemplary example of what a DP volunteer should be like and was very interested in people and their activities. Her quiet, gentle presence was evident each Wednesday at the Drop-in. She was always available to give words of advice and wisdom when needed, to both volunteers and service users. Together with Sister Barbara, these two Sisters of the Cross and Passion, worked very hard to provide funding and goods to keep DP afloat during the early days.
The generous financial support of this community of Sisters was to continue in the years ahead and continues to the present day!

Sister Christine had retired to Yorkshire, where some of the volunteers visited her at her retirement home. She was very happy there and was often taken out and about by our own past volunteer and Trustee David O'Keeffe and his partner Wendy.

It was a privilege to have both Sister Christine and Sister Barbara at the DP. They were much loved and are much missed. Their love in action was an example to us all.

Refection by: Pam (DP Volunteer)