One group in Liverpool is focused on making the world "just a little bit" better.
Asylum Link, based on Overbury Street, is a Liverpool charity offering food, clothes, casework support and activities like biking, gardening, climbing and volunteering, for people seeking asylum in Merseyside.
This week, Asylum Link teamed up with other local organisations improve their community, or "MIBB it - make it a bit better", in the words of Sister Ann, who sparked the idea. She told the ECHO: "I remember going out feeling a bit low and seeing where wildflowers had been planted in little plots among houses, and the difference it made me feel.
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"There's something healing about making the environment better and going back to the wild. It makes the bees and the butterflies come, and there's a real uplifting sense that can happen."
To make things "just a little bit" better, on Wednesday, March 29, one group of volunteers went litter-picking on surrounding streets with Litter Clear Volunteer, who they joined to clean up the nearby Crown Street Park last weekend.
Joy, an asylum seeker among the group who came to fill bags with rubbish, said: "It's a fulfilling thing. A small thing makes a huge difference with the environment. To come out here and pick the litter made a huge difference for me and made me feel really good. Perhaps people who saw us litter picking will be mindful, and my appeal to the council is that we need more litter bins."
Amid trees and gravestones, Sami Sam was among the volunteers helping gardener Mike clear branches, weed and laying compost in the grounds of St Anne's Church, which leases part of its property to Asylum Link. Sami said: "I like staying active and I like to clear the environment for the people who enjoy it."
Another group went to an allotment to grow food for Asylum Link's kitchen to feed destitute people. At the event, they served rice, beans, spinach and chicken with a salad.
The highlight of the event was the unveiling and painting of a new minibus bought with £1,000 in donations. Roughly £700 of this came from Red City Disco, a club night raising money for different causes at each event.
Asylum Link will use the minibus to take people on trips, collect them if they're evicted, and deliver emergency food to people in need.
Rory Goldring, Action Asylum's project lead, described the minibus as a lifeline for people who access Asylum Link's services, which includes roughly 100 people a day coming for a meal and 70 for English lessons.
Asylum seekers get just £8 a week if they're living in a hotel with catering, and just £45 if they're living in dispersal accommodation, leaving little to spare after paying for food.
Ellie Jane, an artist from Liverpool, was painting the van with yellow stripes and a sun-like semicircle, along with artwork by people who visit Asylum Link. Red, blue and green symbols representing cycling, yoga and roller-skating are among the designs.
She said: "With the climate that we live in, there are so many negative things, the list is endless. But there's something so powerful when individuals in a community come together and make it a little bit better. I've done lots of projects similar to this and every time I come away from it feeling a sense of camaraderie and a sense of fulfilment."
Rory from Action Asylum, the volunteering project at Asylum Link, said: "Here at Action Asylum we do this day in, day out. We get volunteers from the local community and from asylum seeking backgrounds, and we come together to do positive things in our community like beach cleanups and tree planting.
"We want to make sure we're really rooted in our local community. We've got a lot of people accessing our building here, so it made sense to partner with Nugent Food Pantry, who exist next door in St. Anne's Church, because they're accessing a whole other group of people in the local community, who are also struggling.
"For us to come together, support each other and make a positive difference in our neighbourhoods has been a cool thing to bring together."
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