Ursuline Links projects

How it all started

Back in 2010 when Ursuline Links began we had just one volunteer opportunity.  A group of adults and university students went to New Orleans, USA to help re-build the city after Hurricane Katrina.  We were there for two weeks helping to restore homes which have been devastated.  It was hard physical work: demolishing walls, stripping plaster and taking out windows – all in intense heat. Since then, groups of students and adults have been back several times.

Since then, each year around 50 students offer to take part in a volunteer opportunity. 

Over the years  we have organised and worked in Day Camps in London, Manchester, California and Idaho.  We have been involved in social justice projects in London and the USA: assisting in food banks, soup kitchens, homeless centres, Care Homes and helping in the anti- trafficking booth at the London Olympics.

Groups have been to India to teach English and to Johannesburg in South Africa to work with refugee children and to Cork, Ireland to work in centres for the homeless. In 2021, the plan was for a group to go to Richards Bay, South Africa to work with families in need. Sadly, the pandemic called a halt to all activities.

Where we are now

Unfortunately, due to COVID, all volunteering opportunities ceased in 2020 and so, since 2021, there has been a vigorous endeavour to re-ignite the mission of Ursuline Links. Because of the prohibitive cost of travel overseas and the current cost of living crisis as well as limited fundraising opportunities, Ursuline Links now concentrates its projects in London Boroughs.

Following a programme of reflection and training workshops, the young people volunteered in one of two separate weeks of their summer holidays in July and August 2022 to reach out to the most needy in their local communities. They volunteered for either 'The London Social Justice Project' i.e.  soup kitchens, food banks, homeless shelters, centres for the elderly in Newham and Redbridge or at 'Day Camp', a week long summer project for primary school children in Forest Gate, Newham.