OUR STORY

Born in 2018, Unique Community is the beautiful product of more than 20 years working with and for marginalised communities.

Natalia originally founded the organisation to support Russian-speaking immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Having arrived as a refugee herself in 1994, Natalia understood first-hand the challenges (and beauty) of building a new life in the UK. Her lived experience informs the organisation’s person-centred approach. The support offered at Unique Community always stems from our clients’ unique needs.

Through our drop-in centre, we established partnerships with organisations across North West London. We developed projects according to community need; providing everything from IT and English classes to housing and school admission applications, as well as our signature creative cultural events. Over the next two decades we supported thousands of new arrivals from Ukraine, Latvia, Russia, Lithuania, Georgia and beyond, empowering them to adapt and thrive in their new environment.

Our community provided people with a trusted network of contacts who were able to support them through the turmoil they frequently faced. However, we saw our mission as not just helping our community survive, but to experience joy. Thus, our cultural and arts projects slowly became the primary focus of our work. As our reputation grew and demand increased, we reframed our organisation to extend across all marginalised communities and focus on the arts. Through Natalia’s vision, the expertise of our trustees and a newly appointed Artistic Director, Unique Community was born. Our experience of tackling social isolation amongst people from immigrant backgrounds gives us a deep understanding of what it means to be truly inclusive, accessible & co-designed.

Due to our established links with the Eastern European community in Northwest London, many early clients now bring their children and young people to our sessions. Our renowned ability to work with recent arrivals has also led to regular referrals from local organisations working with immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Ninety percent of the participants in our youth theatre are from an immigrant background.

As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we opened The Stork Project. Originally set up to support people arriving from Ukraine, it has now evolved to support the mental health and wellbeing of people from all migrant backgrounds. To read more about this work please follow this link.