Two spirited sisters from Angola, Tatiana Jose and Lucia Loureiro introduce their small Barnet based charity, Clube Nova Vida Angola, which translates to Angola New Life Club.
About the charity
Volunteer and charity co-founder Lucia, explains, “We started the charitable community group in 2014 for our friends and relatives who were Portuguese-speaking and who were finding it difficult to integrate into their new community. Clube Nova Vida Angola was the appropriate name because we were small and we wanted people to feel they were coming into a club, to open up and speak about their difficulties and the struggles in the community.”
Community activities
“We help with paperwork and form filling for native Portuguese speakers struggling with English. Over time, the diversity of work we do as a charity has grown and now focuses on supporting integration and tacking isolation among local ethnic minority groups within the Barnet community; but also promotes diversity and the sharing of our Angolan cultural values. We also signpost people to access work training, skills and have even supported some women suffering domestic violence. It has grown by word of mouth in the local Barnet area and helped around 150 clients.”
Charity joint co-founder, and Chair of the Resident Board of Barnet Homes, Tatiana, adds, “It’s not just Angolans that we help, but English speakers and all Portuguese speaking nationalities who face issues with the language barrier. Our main aim is to support them to move forwards and to help change their mind set as they settle into the wider Barnet community.”
Get involved – volunteers needed!
The ambitious duo is dedicated to the charity’s aims of making a positive social impact. Lucia says, “Where we come from there’s a lot of traumas, and our aim is to strengthen the native Portuguese speaking community in Barnet through supporting them. We will keep going and growing, and we want to recruit more volunteers to help us.
Clube Nova Vida Angola regularly hold community gatherings in Barnet. If you’d like to know more or want to get involved, please contact: novavidaangola@gmail.com