Ealing Community Transport Wins National Award
Helping combat isolation and loneliness throughout the borough
An Ealing transport service that provides a lifeline for many has been given a national award.
Ealing Community Transport (ECT) has been named as the NatWest Social Enterprise 100 Impact Champion for 2019, at a ceremony in central London.
The judges praised ECT for its dedication and professionalism in helping thousands of people who struggle with accessing mainstream public transport.
Accepting the award, ECT Chief Executive Anna Whitty told an audience of nearly 300 charity and social enterprise leaders that for too long, community transport had been an “unsung hero”. Yet the services it provided made a huge difference to people’s everyday lives – whether it involved a simple trip to the shops, taking them for a health check-up, or a day out with a group of friends.
Anna also described how loneliness and isolation among elderly people had become a major issue, and one that community transport was able to help solve. She asked: “Do you know that some people stay in their homes without talking to anyone all week?”
ECT was given particular praise by the judges for developing a pioneering toolkit that it uses to measure and demonstrate the ‘social value’ that it provides through its services. Judges were also impressed at how the charity had shared its toolkit widely with other community transport organisations around the UK.
Patrick O’Keeffe, Chair of ECT, applauded the commitment of the team and CEO – who was also a finalist in the awards’ Leadership category.
He said: “The team work hard on a daily basis to bring people who are isolated and on their own back into the community. I’m really delighted that their dedication has been recognised with this national award.”
Run by Pioneers Post magazine in partnership with NatWest bank, the annual awards programme recognised the top 100 social enterprises in the UK, and among them, seven award winners across a range of categories.
The Impact Award won by ECT recognises enterprises that “take considerable measures to demonstrate and communicate the social or environmental impact of their business, using this to improve their performance and win new business”.
Ben Carpenter, chief executive at Social Value UK and one of the judges of the Impact category, said: “The Impact Award was tough to judge this year. There were many excellent entries. The winner ECT should be applauded, not only for producing a very comprehensive impact framework but for sharing this with other similar organisations and allowing them to benefit as well.”
Simon Jacobs, Chief Administrative Officer at NatWest, who hosted the awards evening, said: “We are once again proud to support the NatWest SE100, recognising and celebrating the most inspiring social enterprises in the UK, all of whom, in various ways, support the communities in which we live and work. Tonight’s winners show that having purpose at the core of your organisation can drive even greater success. Congratulations to all, from NatWest.
9th April 2019