Our Aims

The Aims of St. Margaret's House:

  • provide a wide range of social welfare initiatives and services to serve and enable the local community.

  • provide accommodation, encouragement and support for like-minded charitable organisations.
  • provide practical support and opportunity for community networking and development.
  • provide equality of access and opportunity
  • help people to work together in playing a more active part within their community.

A Note from the Director:

 

We were recently paid a visit by Iain Tuckett and Kate Swade of the Coin Street Settlement. An amazing place, Coin Street is bigger and better than St. Margarets House, possibly lacking the charm of our naivety but otherwise close to an ideal of perfection to which we can only aspire. Coin Street is in the process of preparing a scoping report to support our bid for a feasibility grant from Community builders toward our proposed newbuild courtyard annexe and extension. More space and more contemporary space is crucial for our development and to safeguard the future.

Coin Street leads the way but, having said that, I should make it clear that St. Margarets House is an absolutely excellent place; full of incredible endeavours, the heart of Bethnal Green; a powerhouse of good works and community cohesion. As this wonderful upgraded, re-launched website testifies the House is a very diverse and interesting place. Independent and operationally self-sufficient St Margarets is a multi-facited community hub covering a lot of ground.
There's an old Indian story about an elephant in a pitch-dark room. A number of people are asked to go into the room and describe what they find. One feels a leg and says the elephant is like the stump of a tree; another feels the trunk and says the elephant is like a snake, and so on. It's the same here; different people take away different perceptions.
Some people think of St. Margarets as a community centre; others see a collection of social enterprises. Some of the voluntary groups based here see us as their partners or even their design and media team; others see us as co-ordinators of the volunteers team; cafe events; community shops; hall and resource centre activities. All these things and more.

Recently we have had a lot of high-profile events here and a lot of new community activity. To find out more continue to browse this website or even join our mailing list. Our success depends on the involvement of many people; our continued success will depend on the involvement of many more. You are very welcome to come along and get involved.

Tony Hardie - Director