Working together for the local community

Sep 15, 2015

By Rukhsana Nabi – Partnerships Manager

The Emanuel Whittaker brand is synonymous with giving back to the communities we work with.  While we are always proud of the work our clients pay us to do – modernising homes and improving the external local environment – we are also just as proud of the work we do that we don’t get paid for.  Internally, we call this ‘the Whittaker Way’ because it’s just the way we have always done things.

Our site teams often go the extra mile for people in the communities where we work because it’s part of our culture.  For example, our team working for Salix Homes on the Tootal estate are happy to help out residents where they can over and above our contractual requirements.  This means fitting bathroom accessories for elderly tenants who can’t manage to do it for themselves or carrying out daily checks on a resident who is recovering from a minor operation.

It’s the same story in Oldham where we are working with First Choice Homes.  Our teams are regularly giving residents a helping hand, whether that’s reuniting lost pets to their owners or collecting new keys for a blind resident.  We are also keen to get involved in wider community initiatives which is why you could find out team helping out at a community fun day on their day off.

Another community initiative was at Barton Moss Primary School in Eccles.  We are in the area working with City West Housing Trust and the local school wanted to renovate the playground to make it easier for the children to distinguish different surfaces.   Our team invested time, money and resources in the renovation which included removing old surfaces and laying new ones so that the youngsters could have a playground they could be proud of.

And sometimes our enthusiasm spills over into the local community and we ask them to help us improve where they live.  A prime example of this was a litter pick we organised in Rochdale where we are working with Rochdale Boroughwide Housing.   Our team worked with the Cloverhall Tenants Association Co-op Ltd on the Cloverhall Estate and we were really pleased at the number of  children who turned up to help clean up their local area.  They had such a good time they wanted to do it all again the next day!

It just goes to show that working to support a local community, whether that’s individuals or groups within it, really can have the feel good factor.

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