QHA shortlisted for award
Quaker Homeless Action is shortlisted for the Improving Life Chances category of the Mayor of London Volunteering Awards
Quaker Homeless Action (QHA) volunteers have been shortlisted for a Mayor of London Volunteering Award for a mobile library they run for homeless people.
The winner for the category of Improving Life Chances will be announced at a ceremony on 14 October at City Hall in London.
Katie Calvert, QHA project coordinator and manager, told the Friend that the library has been running for twenty years in London. ‘We see a range of people each time, it can vary hugely. On a run recently at St Giles, I had a great conversation with a reader about books that he was passionate about. As he was leaving he turned and said: “Reading makes me feel almost human.”’
The nomination comes as QHA prepares for a fundraising drive to buy a new mobile library van. According to Katie Calvert: ‘Our current one does not meet the new ULEZ [Ultra Low Emission Zone] guidelines and we have gone from paying £10 per week in congestion charges to around £60, depending on how many trips we do in a week. We had hoped to move to electric, but they have not created ones that are big enough just yet.’
