Brushstrokes is a partnership community project founded in 1999 by Sister Margaret Walsh of the Infant Jesus Sisters and part of the wider Father Hudson’s Society.
“We must be in the hand of God like a brush in the hand of the painter”
Nicolas Barré
Brushstrokes is an all-encompassing support to people most vulnerable and isolated around Sandwell and West Birmingham includes clothing, food banks, baby packages, mother and toddler groups and innumerable amounts of counsel and levels of advice on a variety of needs. Today it predominantly serves asylum seekers and other very low-income families on visas with no recourse to public funds, who the outreach came to realise were very often those in most desperate need and neglect.
Grant Award: Father Hudson’s Care received a Day for Life grant in 2023.
“So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works”
Matthew 5:16
Although the Brushstrokes project is based in the Sandwell community, its loving attentiveness to the needy has overflowed into it becoming so well-known that it receives referrals from the wider west Birmingham area as well. Its recent peer support project, through Sandwell Council , called Embrace, has been able to expand into hiring staff and volunteers particularly focused on pregnant women and mothers with children under the age of two.
Thanks to Day for Life funding, we can provide something really special to start babies’ lives off well. It really makes a difference
Tom Drinan, Delivery Manager at Brushstrokes
As many as half of its 100+ volunteers and workforce are clients and recipients of support themselves, which has made Brushstrokes not only a project but a close-knit community. While many asylum seekers wait two to three years for the right to work, the community provides both support and a source of work and activity. On average 60 clients and local supporters attend a weekly Friday morning café which opened in 2015 to reach a growing number of people. Its food banks on Tuesdays and Thursdays, supported by Day for Life funding, see between 130 and 150 families benefitting each week.
With the support from the Day for Life Fund, Brushstrokes has been able to go above and beyond as a provider for those in complex circumstances and with no other resort. Thanks to funds oriented towards baby packages, a recent case saw an expectant mother and child one week from their due date, in a very stressful situation, become two of many to whom Brushstrokes’ services were a lifeline. Given the project’s well-reputed profile among midwifery teams, children’s services and other authorities, the expectant mother was made known to the project. At once and on the very same day, a delivery manager was able to gather and mobilise a package of all the goods and supplies needed for her new-born, including basic care items and fresh fruits and vegetables for their health. Without recourse to Day for Life funding, additional means of extraordinary support and special assistance for the start of babies’ lives would simply not be available to the charity.
The mission of the Centre for the Art of Dying Well is to help people of all faiths and none both to live and die well and be supported in grief.
