About african challenge

What makes us different is the way we work and how we engage with Black community and other ethnic minority groups in our community.

About us

AFRICAN CHALLENGE SCOTLAND (ACS) is a voluntary organisation which is Scotland wide and based in Glasgow it helps build more successful integrated communities, relieve poverty, advance education and promote cultural and sporting links between African’s and Scottish population.

African Challenge Scotland (ACS) was founded in 2013 to address challenges and barriers for young people, through the creation of opportunities for the black, minority ethnic communities in Glasgow.

• To promote African Culture, Education and relieve poverty.
• To promote Sport and Healthy Living among its members and supporters.
• To provide an educational, supportive environment for its members and supporters.
• To organise educational, social, recreational and sporting events for its members and supporters.

Strategies

We want to make our African Challenge Scotland an accessible and welcoming place where all ethnic’s minorities, or those who wish to know more about our activities, can gather together and come as one community. African Challenge Scotland is open Monday to Saturday.

An important part of our strategy is community welfare and education. All our activities including classes, health initiatives and conferences are widely advertised and we welcome the participation of all in our local community, Ethnic minorities and non-ethnics minorities alike. All our activities are free and supported by grant funding.

Helping people who have moved to Glasgow and North Glasgow particularly settle into the community successfully is important to us. We ensure that families, whose first language is not English receive appropriate English language teaching and that their children are helped in their attendance at local schools.

African Challenge Scotland service

We offered employment advice, social services support and women support groups. We have also protected families in relocation to another area if they have been victims of racist incidents in their area and work directly with social services on other issues that affect African communities more generally. We have worked with local elected members to push on social equality and advancing justice in our city.

African Challenge Scotland short and long-term projects during this cost of living crisis including:

• Homework clubs with mentors
• Participatory budgeting leading to entrepreneurship
• Support with CV’s, college and university applications for STEM subjects
• COVID-19 resilience and cost of living crisis Response Programme
• Free Homework Help Classes for children and young people
• Women Support Group
• Mental Health support
• Asylum seekers and refugees support

Services provided by African Challenge Scotland are:

• Advancement of public participation in sport
• Advancement of Citizenship/community development
• Advancement of the arts, heritage, culture and science
• Advancement of education for children and youth
• Outreach/befriending service – This is crucial to ACS work overall. It provides a great deal of support to African and ethnic minorities who are very isolated and lack confidence for various reasons in Glasgow wide area.
• Family Support Work to deal with the social welfare problems of African and ethnic minorities’ families helped in several ways.

African Challenge Scotland provides services to:

• Children and young people
• People of particular ethnic or racial origin
• African and ethnic minorities families/groups
• Partners agencies to support engagement/integration with hard to reach communities
• Promote community integration
• People of white origin