Southall Community Alliance Receives The Queen's Award


Highest honour that can be given to a voluntary group in the UK


Some of the members of the Southall Community Alliance. Picture: Facebook

Southall Community Alliance, a community organisation based in Southall, has been awarded The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. This is the highest award a local voluntary group can receive in the UK and is equivalent to an MBE.

Southall Community Alliance was established as a registered charity in 2000 and is based at Southall Town Hall. It operates a community resource centre that provides meeting room, free hot desks and office support and act as a voice for Southall, arranging regular Community Forum and partnership meetings with statutory and voluntary partners. The charity says it has acted as an incubator for significant numbers of new ideas and projects in Southall over the last 20 years.

In 2020 it jointly established the successful Southall Food Hub and many of its day-to-day services are delivered in partnership with other groups at a range of Southall venues, training, befriending, luncheon clubs, exercise activities for inactive residents, volunteering and tackling the ‘digital divide’.

Southall Community Alliance is one of 244 local charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups to receive the prestigious award this year. The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service aims to recognise outstanding work by local volunteer groups to benefit their communities. It was created in 2002 to celebrate The Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Recipients are announced each year on 2 June, the anniversary of The Queen’s Coronation.

Award winners this year include volunteer groups from across the UK, including: a rural support group for farmers in Shropshire; a community magazine addressing isolation in the Western Isles; a running club engaging all ages in County Tyrone; a film academy and community hub based in South Wales, and a food bank in Greater London feeding vulnerable individuals and providing training opportunities.

Representatives of Southall Community Alliance will receive the award crystal and certificate from the Lord-Lieutenant of London later this summer. In addition, two volunteers from Southall Community Alliance will attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace in May 2023 (depending on restrictions at the time), along with other recipients of this year’s Award.

Harsev Bains, Chair of Southall Community Alliance says, “How absolutely delighted I am that the consistent work by the charity has been recognised during the year of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service is a great honour and a celebration of Southall’s diverse communities. The Award significantly recognises the commitment of our magnificent volunteers and the hard-working staff team, who selflessly dedicate themselves to improve quality of lives for all in Southall.”

Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More

This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism.

Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets.

We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more.

However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do.

We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area.

A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site.

One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute.

If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor.

For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site.

June 9, 2022