Our Change projects are all about Sustainable Change, One Human at a Time.
We love to help people get to where they want to go, and we know how important it is to feel good along the way. Our Change projects offer activities to improve health & wellbeing, highlight important issues, raise necessary questions, and provoke positive change. We design them in partnership with influential organisations, local communities, and involve those we support as leaders, contributors and participants.
For September, we are partnering with ONE YOU for the National Know Your Numbers Week” From 2nd September until 8th September, the Know Your Numbers campaign #knowyournumbers encourages everyone to check their blood pressure numbers. One You will provide a free health check session for our swim members on September 27th. Sign up below.
Health & Wellbeing
KarmaBank provides access to weekly sports sessions (REGISTER BELOW) and a wide variety of health & wellbeing activities (some listed below). Contact us with questions here
Spotlight: School Choir on Spotify
This year, we connected the St. Mary’s Ukrainian School Choir with our partner London Youth Choirs. Many St. Mary’s pupils have suffered trauma from fleeing the ongoing war in their country. Here is a recording of St. Mary’s singing John Lennon’s Imagineon Spotify, which we produced last year with the kind help of the Rugby Portobello Trust, and funding from RBKC’s Community fund.
2024
DIVE IN Weekly Swimming for Women
Weekly Beginner’s Lessons & Free Swimming for Women, with female lifeguard and female swim teacher.
Join our growing swimming group for free swim lessons 3-4pm, stronger swimmers enjoy a relaxing swim at a very reduced pool fee of £2.10. Location: 3-4pm, Chelsea Sports Centre, Chelsea Manor St, SW3 5PL REGISTER HERE
Karmabank Racquets Club for Women
Beginner’s Tennis lessons for Women every Sunday 1-2pm. Arrive 12:45!
Racquets & Balls provided, just bring your energy & enjoy meeting our growing community of members from all over the world 🙂 Location: Holland Park, Court 4, W14 8NH. Court 4 is at the south end of the park, opposite the Design Museum. Click here for a park map. REGISTER HERE
2023
PARALLAX ART FAIR – July 8-9
Kensington Town Hall, W8 7NX
Our LIFT Mentorship programme with the Rotary Club is now active. Your members/servicer users who are interested finding work, or developing their employable skills can sign up here to be connected with a Rotary Club member.
Weekly Women’s Sewing Group every Monday evening Must pre-register, contact community@karmabank.co, WhatsApp +447955636101
Every Wednesday
Trojan Women Project is a fun & inspiring theatre workshop, with movement & activities, and the chance to share your stories. Hot lunch served. Weekly every Wednesday 10:30am-1pm at Chelsea Theatre. For more details, contact community@karmabank.co, WhatsApp +447955636101
ESOL continues at the Ukrainian Community Centre, 154 Holland Park Avenue, W11 4UH. Every Wednesday evening, Register here community@karmabank.co
Every Thursday Lunchtime – Hastings
Karmabank Community Kitchen and Food Support in Hastings. Thursdays from 1 – 3pm. For more details, check here.
Every Saturday afternoon
Community Food Bank at Earls Court, 3pm, 300 Old Brompton Road, SW5 9JF
Every Sunday
Every Sunday Noon-1pm, Women’s Beginner Tennis, at Holland Park. Register community@karmabank.co.
Special Screening at Ciné Lumière on March 16th, 2024
16/3/24: Karmabank connected Amnesty’s Football Welcomes project with the Institut Français, QPR, and the FA for a screening + Panel discussion + Q&A with Uk & Afghan women’s football players.
16/3/24: "COPA 71" Screening x Amnesty International's Football Welcomes
Powerful film screening, panel with UK & Afghan footballers on the wider social impact of women’s football, an introduction by Sandy Abi-Elias to Amnesty’s Football Welcomes project, and a chance to meet and hear from players from QPR’s Women’s Team, with a special appearance from one of the Afghan “Girl Power” team, who fled the Taliban after the fall of Kabul.
What is COPA 71?
Mexico City, August 1971. 100,000 spectators going wild for the international football players battling it out on the pitch. It’s one of the greatest moments in international football history. And it’s likely you’ve never even heard of it. This is Copa 71, the unofficial Women’s World Cup. Dismissed by both FIFA and domestic football associations around the world, this event has been entirely written out of history. Until now.
About the Panel
As part of Women’s History month we connected Amnesty’s Football Welcomes project with the Institut Français, QPR & the FA for a screening + Panel + Q&A with UK & Afghan football players. Prior to the film, the IF will showed a short intro trailer on Amnesty’s Football Welcomes project.
Who is on the Panel?
Since the COPA World Cup, the women’s game has come a long way, but only in certain parts of the world. In partnership with the Institut Français, Amnesty International and QPR Football club, we’re delighted to present a post screening panel where we’ll discuss the real experience of the women’s game and the wider social impact of inclusive sport.
On the panel: Nicole Melling, Kasha Petit & Courtany Ward-Chambers from the QPR women’s football team, Najma Arefi who played for Herat City in Afghanistan before seeking asylum in the UK, Sandy Abi-Elias, Women’s Football Officer for Amnesty International and Maria Fernandes. The event was introduced by Karmabank Founder Andrew Standen-Raz, and para-athlete and para- contemporary dancer Ayuna Berbidaeva.
This was our third-sports related film event with the Institut Français, and the fourth on the subject of female equality in sports and the arts, in a cooperation stretching back over 5 years to the charity premiere of Ai Wei Wei’s “The Rest.”
More on our Social Impact events with the Institut Français
The workshops organised by the IF following film screenings attract up to 50 participants. For the first in 2021, we invited newly arrived Afghan women evacuated from Kabul, some of whom had never been to a cinema before.
This event is in solidarity with the #noexcuse campaign to end violence against women and girls, and with our commitment to #SEE: Supporting Equality Everywhere.
A collaboration with The Institut Français
The Institut Français is the French Agency of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs in charge of promoting French culture overseas and international cultural exchanges.
Najma Arefi
Afghan Female Footballer (Fled Afghanistan 2021)
“When we were in school, everyone was saying, ‘I will be a teacher, I will be a nurse…’ and it’s so hard for me to see them now. Because we have the opportunity, we should be their voice and speak up for them: girls can study, girls can be everything they want to be.”
Women’s Football Officer at Amnesty International UK
“The French Football Federation’s ban on religious clothing not only prevents Muslim women from playing football with a hijab but also coaching and officiating, violating their rights to freedom of expression, association, and religion. All women, anywhere in the world, should be able to #WearWhatYouWant We stand in solidarity with every single woman and in defiance of all those who deny them their rights.” #footballwelcomes#footballforall#humanrights
QPR Women’s Team
Team Members from the QPR Women’s Team will offer their take on playing professional sports.
“The women’s game is now continuing to grow, having this many women players, inspiring the whole of the UK and England to get involved in the sport in some way. The sport will never look back.”
-Kasha Petit, Captain at QPR FC Women
”This is me. I am going to School.
Dream picture drawn during the first Institut Français "Film + Art" session.By an afghan grandmother who was never allowed to go to school.
