Newton & Sandwick Community Association has been in place for many years and is run by a volunteer committee which works very well but to enable the community to become more involved we realised we would require our centre and its facilities to be more available and that could only happen by re-structuring our existing committee or set up a separate ‘partnership’ (under the direction of our association) employing community development workers, and so the Newton and Sandwick Partnership was formed.

Over the last few years the ‘Partnership’ has gone from strength to strength and has gained a very high profile throughout the whole of the Western Isles and beyond. We very quickly realised that by having project workers in place this enabled us to get involved in so many different things and also our centre could be used to its full potential. At the moment our ‘user groups’ are various faith groups, childminders, senior citizens, youth music groups, music tuition groups, band practices, parties, meetings courses, etc.

We are a very large community consisting of all age groups with the highest percentage being in the over 50 age group which prompted us to apply for BBC’s ‘Prime Time’ funding through the lottery and much to our delight we find ourselves in the final three in our area.

Should we be the final winner of ‘Prime Time’ our project is to have a superb horticultural project (situated behind our centre) employing 2-3 part-time workers and hopefully will encourage all age groups but especially over 50s to come along and get involved with growing

‘their own’ and also pass on their skills to others.

In discussions with another local community group -‘Cearns Community Development Project’- we find they also have a high percentage of over 50s who by jointly working with us will also benefit from this funding. The issue of health around those living in both communities was one of the main reasons we decided to apply for funding for a ‘grow your own’ project, this project hopes to help not only with physical activity and mental well-being but also looking at the benefits of eating a healthy diet.  Due to our geographical location it is hoped to purchase a community mini-bus to transport locals to and from the site which would encourage inter-community relationships.

Both of the mentioned communities are extremely ‘forward thinking’ and have worked in partnership on numerous occasions, drawing from each others strengths and expertise. We envisage both communities going from strength to strength.