The Old Fire Station
What does your organisation do?
We are an arts centre that shares a building and a deep, 13-year partnership with homelessness charity Crisis. We design creative, learning and social opportunities for the public and people experiencing homelessness or disadvantage in our theatre, galleries, studios and café.
What does having a social impact mean to you?
We focus on our communities and voices who have been underserved in our city, changing who defines culture to attract audiences with something new. We share our building and a deep, 13-year partnership with homelessness charity Crisis. With this at our heart, we:
Include people struggling through disadvantage in everything we do. We:
- Offer training, volunteering and employment opportunities to people experiencing homelessness
- Present good art, focusing on new work and artists from challenging or disdavantaged backgrounds
- Help people shape who they are through free tickets to shows, workshops, and classes
- Support, and offer space to, community organisations e.g. Refugee Resource and support a start-up of female refugees to cater for our cafe
- Host events about how organisations can be more human-friendly and how we can make Oxford a better place through our Marmalade festival, and share our in-depth storytelling evaluation methodology with other organisations