We have kicked off a Windrush awareness campaign to encourage more people (but this time mostly not of Caribbean heritage) to apply to the Home Office Windrush documentation and compensation schemes. The crisis did not only affect people from the Caribbean. Commonwealth citizens from countries like Nigeria, India, Ghana, kenya, Cameroon and South Africa were […]

With ever increasing gas and electricity bills exacerbated by a cost of living crisis, the Chief Executive Officer of Ofgem (Office of Gas and Electricity Markets) that regulates the energy markets has confirmed the regulator is still doing its best to protect everyone including vulnerable energy customers from energy companies mostly interested only in making

Twelve months after a Citizen Outreach Coalition Liverpool centred energy savings awareness project was launched, more than 450 people, most of them from ethnic minority backgrounds have received vital advice that has helped them reduce their gas and electricity bills. People have benefited from the advice through dozens of home visits, telephone advice, community events

An end to austerity, expanding free school meals to all children in school, increasing peoples’ incomes and urgent social housing reforms are some of the recommendations some keynote speakers made at the first ever cost of Living crisis (COL) conference organised by the Liverpool Hope university in its Shaw Street Campus on Wednesday June 28

Community organisation Citizen Outreach Coalition Sierra Leone (COC-SL) has launched an ambitious three years campaign to reduce the massive damage plastic bags cause to the environment across Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Shoppers have been depending on free plastic bags when shopping for groceries and small items for a long time, unaware of the

More Liverpool Black and ethnic minority communities have agreed to join the fight to protect the climate and environment to secure the future for their children and grandchildren as charity Citizen Outreach Coalition COC continues its climate awareness campaign. During a campaign event with Friends of Liverpool, a social meeting of mostly migrants from Cameroon

Official statistics indicate over 12.500 people have had settled status and just under 2000 people been compensated (May 2021) which is far below the more than 50.000 people estimates indicate may have been affected by the windrush Generation crisis. The Home Office is encouraging more people who could have been affected to get in touch

Loneliness, isolation and mental health issues are some of the side effects the UK government lock down measures to help stop the spread of the deadly COVID 19 pandemic has brought to millions of people across the country. “This is the first call I am receiving in over five months now”, a 64 year old

With close to a million people displaced from their homes, some living in bushes and others in neighbouring Nigeria, Citizen Outreach Coalition-Cameroon (COC-Cameroon) has extended a helping hand to some of them in Bamenda, the North West regional capital. The aid was administered with help from Bamenda based organisation Youth Outreach Programme with Funding from

More Liverpool and other sports enthusiast joined us on day five of our year long project codenamed “Kick CardioVascular Diseases out of Merseyside”. Football, table tennis and some walkout at the gym were the sporting activities that took place on Saturday September 7 2019 at the Jubilee Sports Bank, a sporting facility situated in Kensington,

More than 40 residents of Merseyside from young to middle age answered present during the start of our sporting project “Kick Cardiovascular Diseases out of Merseyside”. The venue was the Jubilee Sports bank in Kensington Liverpool and the day Saturday August 24 2019. Table tennis and football were the main game sports during the project

With music playing from a portable public address system in the background, volunteers from charity Citizen Outreach Coalition (COC) were out in force in Church Street, the Life wire of Liverpool city Centre distributing and talking to residents about crime prevention. The event took place on Saturday July 6 2019 and was part of the

The reaction to the acting was initially silence, and then applause as participants gave the thumps up to the workshop facilitator and main speaker. The applause lasted for a few minutes before the actor acknowledged the positive response. The occasion was another workshop organised for young people at Liverpool Power House, a hostel for young

Skiving, youth offending service, pleading guilty to a crime, meeting victims of crime, the age of criminal responsibility, getting arrested and having a criminal record are some of the themes that young people either learnt anew or notions they needed to pick up during a workshop on crime in Toxteth, Liverpool. This they learnt, will

Nothing fights loneliness better than when people meet and celebrate life. They make new friends and create everlasting connections. They play, the sing, they dance and do loads of other connected, group activities. Join our friendship clubs.

Following from our highly successful Heritage Lottery fund Project-The Definitive Story of Africans in Merseyside, Liverpool based registered charity Citizen Outreach Coalition (COC)has now created three Friendship clubs in Leeds, London and Liverpool to help fight against loneliness. One of the feedbacks we had from participants of the heritage project (some of whom were in

As police struggle to control knife and gang violence among young people, some youths in Liverpool (North West England) have been told why a simple slogan like “No Knives Saves lives” can be effective in ending youth related crimes. Young people at the Power House residential hall in Toxteth-Liverpool on Monday July 16 2018 were

Some students from selected secondary schools around Liverpool had a chance to learn about Citizen Outreach Coalition (COC) project “The Definitive Story of Africans in Merseyside” during a weeklong work experience visit to the National Museums in Liverpool. The event took place at the Anthony Walker Education Centre situated off the main gallery of the

Nigerian community leader and retired manager Femi Sowande has called on Africans especially in the diaspora to always strategize long term in other to succeed in any development plan. “One of the lessons I have learnt throughout the years is that a lot of us have short term processes in order to achieve certain things.

Sylvester Williams in Lusaka, Zambia As has been the case for the past 43 years, there are hopes Musa Kalaluka 20, who was recently crowned Miss Zambia 2017 might surprise everyone and win Miss World 2018 scheduled tentatively in the Philippines Capital, Manila. If she can achieve that feat, she will become the first African

The Nigerian Sailor who refused to shave his beard. For 47 years now, Denis Nnachi 80, has refused using a blade to shave his beard after he and thousands of Igbos, supporters of the Republic of Biafra, had to accept the shocking defeat of their military commandant Chukuemeka Ojukwu during the 1967-1970 Nigerian Civil war.

It might have been abolished in England 134 years ago with the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act but slavery is “…going on in various forms now in the world. It is like a virus. When you attack it with some medication, it reappears in another format and it is very important that we address it”. Chief

Feeding Zambia. Show casing Zambia’s Farm Produce. Sylvester Williams in Lusaka, Zambia Weeklong festivities to mark the 91st edition of Zambia’s Agricultural show ended on Monday August 7 2017 with a call by President Edgar Chagwa Lungu for farmers to continue improving the quality and quantity of their crops to feed a hungry nation. South

Special report by Sylvester Williams in Lusaka, Zambia As the cost of living continues to rise and unemployment soars in the sub Saharan country of Zambia, young people have been looking for innovative ways to survive. In his March 2017 state of the nation speech, President Edgar Chagwa Lungu implored the people to unite to

The Story of Mr Oyewole Ajagbe. Nigerian born Immigration adviser Mr Oyewole Ajagbe has lived for the better part of 43 years in the UK. He arrived as a Nigerian government sponsored scholarship student in 1974 to study Marine Engineering with hopes of going back after his studies. Well, he is still in the UK

The family of murdered teenager Yusuf Sonko has made an emotional appeal for information that could help identify those responsible for his “brutal and senseless” head gun shot that led to his death on the night of Friday June 2 2017 on Tagus Street behind Lodge lane shops in Toxteth, Liverpool. Yusuf’s death followed two

As part of Citizen Outreach Coalition (COC) organization’s implementation of its Heritage lottery funded project “The Definitive story of Africans in Merseyside”, scores of volunteers have received hands-on training on video/audio history recording and the skills required to collect/record oral history. Training of the volunteers took place on Monday June 12 2017 and Tuesday June

  Liverpool based charity Citizen Outreach Coalition (COC) will on Friday June 16 2017 launch its seminal project “The Definitive Story of Africans in Merseyside” in the Conference room of the Kuumba Imani Millennium Centre in Toxteth. The project was made possible by a grant from Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) made possible by money raised

Some youths In Toxteth Liverpool on Friday April 21 2017 had a one-on-one chance to develop the Communications, self-esteem and anger management skills that will prevent them from adopting any kind of anti-social or indulge in criminal behaviour. Communications expert and former Solicitor Matthew Thorneton-Field was again the main facilitator as Liverpool based Charity Citizen

Residents of Toxteth, on Saturday March 25 2017 joined Citizen Outreach Coalition’s (COC) anti-drug and gun crime campaign to also say no to a scourge that is badly affecting the lives of millions of people across the UK. Known fondly as L8, Toxteth has the highest concentration of black Africans and Caribbean’s in Liverpool. It

Liberian peace activist and 2011 Nobel prize winner Leyman Gbowee brought the closing plenary of the London Bond International conference on development on Tuesday March 21 2017 to a close with two fitting anecdotes; a group of three black boys who provide new flip-flops to a white old man in New York and one of

There was pomp and pageantry, loads of music, dancing, colour and a parade showing the best of Ireland at Trafalgar Square on Sunday March 19 2017  in the heart of London as more than 10.000 people across the world joined the Irish to celebrate one of their patron saints; Patrick. Above all, there was an

The Somali Community on Wednesday March 15 2017 joined in the campaign to prevent guns, drugs and gang crime during a one day workshop at the Somali Community centre situated in Granby Street, Toxteth in Liverpool. It was the first of a series of workshops that Liverpool Charity Citizen Outreach Coalition was organising in its

Dozens of Black activists answered present at the Martin Luther King Jnr building in Liverpool on Saturday January 28 2017 to support efforts to preserve black Liverpool activism heritage through photos, videos for future generations. The event organised by National Museums Liverpool Sankofa Project “…aims to support Black community groups and individuals with looking after