KarmaBank is about
community collaboration diversity care
Meet The Team
KarmaBank CIC started as a WhatsApp group in 2020 to encourage cooperation amongst relief organizations to better allocate food surplus, volunteer, and logistics support.
“Our number one strategy is based on the old adage that it is better to give someone a fishing rod than just the fish, and we do that through being as creative as we can, and finding partners to help us.”
AndrewFounder of KarmaBank
Andrew has both creative and charity experience, designing emergency relief services for Age UK Westminster and founding the Pod Welcome Space in 2021. He established a community kitchen during the pandemic. He has written for magazines, curated a film festival, worked for a Hollywood film studio, and directed & produced several documentary films.
Rima’s creative background in sustainable fashion and organic food has driven several startups across Europe, from the world’s first energy drink Gusto to the House of Khadi fashion label. She produced over six thousand meals for COVID relief from her kitchen at the Playground Theatre, W10 and continued food support from her café at St. John’s Church, Notting Hill using surplus food collected from The Felix Project.
Marilena is an experienced accountant for the NHS and has coordinated food support and outreach for homeless and low-income Londoners for the Community Sant’Egidio for several years. In 2020, she created a foodbank from the back of her Fiat which served hundreds of vulnerable Londoners in Westminster and RBKC weekly throughout the pandemic.
A pivotal moment for KarmaBank was hearing something from an Iranian refugee doctor that made us realise the importance of making our work more sustainable.
Charity can be a lifesaver, especially in emergencies when someone comes to a foodbank literally without shoes, and we luckily have a pair of donated boots. Or a refugee arrives at our welcome space traumatised and in need of urgent counselling and we can either provide access to a volunteer therapist on the spot or refer them to another agency.
But then we spoke with the Iranian GP who had to flee her country, and spent over a year in camps, who told us that she truly appreciated the charity she had received, but the effects of a meal or donated clothes were short-lived.
At the end of every day the walls of my tiny room close in again, and I feel bad again.
It’s a cycle that so many of the people we support go through, and it can be tough to find a solution.
Many passionate community groups, charities and partners are dedicated to strategies that can lift people up and provide the basics of a good life: Hope and a sense of Purpose.
Hope drives people forward to wanting to achieve more for themselves and for others.
This is why we formed Karmabank – to be a tool for truly sustainable, meaningful change, driven by the people who are in the best place to do it: the people we support.
Our Key Milestones
In cooperation with our partners
20
Supported nationalities
2000
People supported with food & basics each month
100
Organisations we cooperate with each year
100
People engaging in our creative, wellbeing & sports acitivites each month
Our core strategy
Our core strategy is based on the old saying that it is better to give someone a fishing rod than just the fish, and we do that through treating each person we meet as unique individuals, with unique needs.
The Iranian GP helped us realise we need to think of those we help as unique individuals with unique issues to resolve, not a faceless group we can easily label.
Social Impact is All About Stories
All our projects are driven by the people that come to us, entirely “bottom-up”. We combine their lived experience with our creative skills, humanitarian experience and wide network of volunteers, cooperating partner organisations, private companies, sponsors, and local government:
Afghan human rights lawyers including a winner of a humanitarian medal who escaped after hiding from the Taliban, came to us devastated that their life’s work to protect women and girls was now lost. We connected the female lawyers with the Human Rights Law department at SOAS to continue their life’s work and teach SOAS students about their experiences.
A young Ukrainian girl who arrived traumatised from the ongoing Russian attack on her country found some relief by helping Ukrainian, Afghan & Iranian female artists to join our Nourish Makers’ Market Art stall project. We found her a tutor to help her train for the SATs so she can attend a top University to study psychology.
A young homeless autistic man who came to a food bank wanted to take photographs. So we gave him a camera and invited him to film the world from his perspective. We arranged for him to meet and learn from an artist, and encouraged him to share his photos in a gallery.
For residents who enjoy art, the French Institute connected with a local artist curated by KarmaBank to teach a free drawing class after a film screening. The packed first session included 10 Afghan women supported by KarmaBank who had never had an art class. The institute is continuing its project with quarterly film & art classes.
The Iranian GP has now become one of our key coordinators – finding her happiness through helping others find a route out of their traumas.
KarmaBank Co-Design Zone
”If the world was designed better we wouldn’t need support.” (Founder, Disability Action Network)
The best projects start from “bottom up”: listening to diverse lifestyles and different abilities, especially from those we aim to support. For an athlete in a wheelchair navigating a world without fully accessible transport or bathrooms, or a refugee mum with an autistic child who came across a rough sea in a small boat, or an elderly pensioner unable to afford life without access to a foodbank,, Necessity is the Mother of Invention: the people we support have “lived experience” of developing creative ways to survive, and often know best what they need. They just lack the resources & network to develop and implement sustainable solutions.
So how do we do it?
Design Thinking
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- Listen. We don’t start with an idea, and try to make it fit. We start from scratch each time, crafting a fresh solution to a unique individual or requirement.
- Identify issues. What is the core issue out of everything presented? Is there an emergency or urgent need to triage first? What are the long term objectives? How can we ensure a person feels actualised and worthy?
- Ideate/brainstorm solutions that meet the core needs and objectives – even blue sky or way out of the box ideas can provide the creativity needed for crafting a practical plan to resolve seemingly impossible situations.
- Make a Prototype – the distillation of the process into a realistic and achievable plan of action. The simplest prototype is a sheet of A4 and a pen.
- Test the solution. Doesn’t work out as planned? Start again at step 1, rinse & repeat.
When we are asked for support, or to consult on a project or event, KarmaBank applies the 5-step Design Thinking Method:
Most projects are in a constant flow of adaptation, pivoting, improvement, learning by doing and trial by error. Sustainable change doesn’t happen at once, and it may take a few cycles before something sticks. Along with passion, we have lots of patience too 🙂
It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.
Mary Wollstonecraft
Our philosophy?
Participatory or Communal Justice: Bring everyone in on designing a better future for all – one that is truly “Just”, without leaving people out.
You, KarmaBank, our volunteers, local residents, local “stakeholders” (shop owners, nurses, gardeners, teachers, kids), councils, other organisations, private corporations, funders…we all have something to contribute to shaping constructive and positive spaces that sustain everyone equally.
Charity is a wonderful thing, but top down charity is a thing of the past – we help each other best together.
A just society is a society that if you knew everything about it, you’d be willing to enter it in a random place.
John Rawls
Our Services
KarmaBank is a consultant and developer of creative projects that produce positive and sustainable impact in various ways. Projects don’t always meet expectations, which wastes funding, time and resources. To tackle this:
• We facilitate cooperative networks between organisations to maximise local resources – funding, volunteers, donations, logistics, spaces, trainers – which help projects deliver what they hope to.
• We work in close collaboration with a diverse range of artists and cultural institutions. We conceptualise creative programmes that benefit marginalised and vulnerable voices and provide a platform for artworks on issues that matter.
• We design spaces and wellness programmes that respond to local needs, whether relief services for new refugees, or ongoing outreach and support services for local communities.
Above all, we believe in the beauty of Action taken with Care, Consideration, and Compassion.
Contact us for more information, or to schedule a consultancy here
Any action done with beauty and purity, and in complete harmony of body, mind and soul, is Art.”
(B.K.S. Iyengar)
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Address
KarmaBank
Suite B, 18 Vicarage gate, London W8 4AA
Connect
+447955636101
community@karmabank.co
© 2023 KarmaBank