Our Mission

BACKGROUND/INTRODUCTION

In 1982 as the foundries, textile and engineering industries started their decline; unemployment began to arise alarmingly in Bradford.
The Local Authority gave a grant of £27,000 to the Karmand Association to purchase St Clements Church Hall and the Management Committee began its humble work for the local community which was at the time a huge challenge. Literacy classes, vocational and skills courses were provided to the unemployed, youths and women in the community. An Advice service was offered to provide essential benefits information to those affected by the recession and unemployment.
The Centre was started from a small building with the aims and objectives of meeting the needs of the local community (from the three local wards of Bradford Moor, Bowling and Undercliffe) in the areas of educational, vocational training and social needs, irrespective of colour, race or creed.
As time passed, the needs of the community kept changing and increasing and so has the Centre, it has continued to expand in line with the demands.
In 1992 the completion of the multi-purpose Sports/Community Hall assisted in catering for a much wider scope of indoor leisure activities for the youth and to promote culture and tradition.
In 1995 the Elderly Day Care Unit extension enabled us to start providing a much needed service to our local elderly community.
The needs and demands for our users exceeded the Centre’s limits and the extension work to create more training/education rooms with money from the National Lottery Charities Board commenced in early 1997.
The Centre applied and received Registered Charity status in January 1997.
In late September 1997 the National Lottery Charities Board again, approved our bid to set up a new Education Development Project at the Centre. The bid was made in response to local school results, to tackle the problem of underachievement in education of local school children. The project will work in conjunction with the local schools, the LEA and the local community towards enhancing the local children’s educational abilities.
As e-learning became more and more popular, in June 2004 Karmand Community Centre took new initiative to extend the building to cater for the e-learning provision, which focused on adults and children who are in disadvantaged communities, in particular, those with low or no ICT skills and who do not have the opportunity to use ICT facilities in their home or at work.
We believe this project was quite important for our local community because learning is the key to our social and economic prosperity. We must ensure that people are able to realise their potential to learn and have the opportunity to return to learning throughout their lives. Information and communication technology is expected, over time, to change the pattern of people’s lives. We have the opportunity to harness these technologies to help people access a wealth of information and to benefit from new ways of learning.
The name of the organisation initially started as Karamand (a Persian/Urdu word meaning “useful”) but due to a typing error it was changed to Karmand and has since remained so, nevertheless it has retained the essence of the meaning.
The Centre has achieved a great deal of its aims and objectives and its continually improving its facilities and services with the changing needs of the local community in mind.
Bowling & Barkerend and Bradford Moor electoral wards has high density populated area in Bradford North and is one of the most deprived area in Yorkshire, with issues such as high unemployment, drugs and substance abuse, low educational achievement, anti social behaviour and families who have crimelogenic tendencies.

Mission and Vision

• Improve the quality of life for the local community
• Provide an accessible, welcoming venue and focal point for the community. A place for people to meet and socialise and a space for local organisations.
• Provide a range of low or no cost educational, recreational, social and cultural activities that are accessible to local people in response to local need.
• Provide a local facility and resource which promotes and encourages learning, development and a stronger community.
• Promote and advocate the needs of groups based in the centre and provide opportunities for more integration and inclusion between users.
• Act as an informal information point on activities and services.
• To maintain strategic relevance with partnerships, local authority and funding bodies.