City of Edinburgh, in partnership with EVOC, are relaunching the ‘A Warm Welcome’ initiative (previously Warm and Welcoming) and would like to invite groups and organisations across Edinburgh to take part.
As we approach winter again we are conscious that opportunities and activities across the city are being developed and restarted, and we want to capture and promote these to as wide an audience as possible.
Email [email protected] to:
- Add, update or remove your organisation’s entry on the interactive map on the Council website (please note if you don’t get in touch your entry will stay the same)
- Add something to the events and activities page
The page is under development with some key changes still to be made, but the current version can be found here.
More about the ‘Warm and Welcoming’ approach
The aim was to promote access to public spaces where people could feel comfortable spending time to drop in or to access services or activities. The approach provided opportunities for partners to collaborate and build on programmes of activity with a view to helping alleviate key issues such as food and fuel poverty. Many organisations participated in the initiative last year, and we’re hoping that many more will join us this year to allow us to build on the positive work that took place and to reach more people.
A key strand of the communications strategy was the creation of a ‘Warm and Welcoming’ webpage on the Council’s website which linked to the existing Cost of Living webpage Cost of living – The City of Edinburgh Council. 95 Organisations including libraries, places of worship, community centres and voluntary sector organisations featured on an interactive map which provided local people with an overview of the free warm spaces across the city. During the peak winter period, the map attracted an average of 185 views per day, with a total of 10,800 interactions between December 2022 and April 2023. Whilst a number of organisations involved simply provided a space to visit, others offered different events and activities which also featured on the webpage. Over 50 events and activities involving 35 different organisations were promoted via the dedicated events page, which received over 3,000 views.
A partnership summit was held in April which brought together the key support organisations alongside many of the providers across the city. The summit was an opportunity to learn from the Warm and Welcoming approach and to determine next steps. Partners agreed to continue to promote the initiative but with an all year round approach to supporting people at a time of need which has led to the evolution of the Warm and Welcoming initiative to ‘A Warm Welcome’.
