Island House offers basic skills training and support for local residents. We provide womens basic and intermediate classes, mens classes as well as IT and Jobsearch.

English Classes
We have a network of roughly 40 women who get involved in formal and informal education classes. The group is predominantly Bangladeshi but includes other women for whom English is a second language. They participate in English classes, a sewing class and recreational trip, as well as getting involved in one- off events such as International Women’s day.

IT and Jobsearch
In partnership with the Isle of Dogs Community Foundation (IDCF) and Tower Hamlets Lifelong Learning Team we are currently providing computer classes and computer classes with language support. We also work in partnership with Job Centre Plus and a local employment brokerage to provide space and support for one to one support on self esteem, job search and life coaching.

Click here to view the courses page

Island House provides support for young people and youth workers to achieve the nationally recognized "Youth Achievement Awards". We run arts-based participatory projects to support young people to get their voices heard on local and global issues that affect them. Participants develop their YAA portfolios by documenting projects and developing leadership and self-reflection skills.

MUST ( Moving Up Support Team)

The MUST peer education project is a partnership between the community and 3 local schools with a steering group made up of parents, young people, teachers and community workers. It supports teenagers to develop mentoring skills and run a youth project with primary school leavers. The project culminates in a mini-grants scheme for the young people to develop their planning and communication skills by running their own community events.

Click here to read about the MUST projects Make Poverty History trip

Expert Patients Programme

The Expert Patients Programme (EPP) is a free self management course that is designed to help people living with a long term health condition to gain self confidence. It empowers them to control their symptoms and find new ways to reduce negative effects the health problems have on their life.

Long term illnesses could include Arthritis, Stroke, Diabetes, ME, Cancer or Coronary Heart Disease.

The expert patients programme is based at Island House, but operates all over Tower Hamlets. The next courses will start in the new year, if you'd like to know more information on these or EPP in general contact:

Jahira Ali, Expert Patient Programme Co-ordinator
Email: Jahera.ali@island-house.org
Phone: 020 7001 7540
(9am-5pm, at other times you can leave a message)

Public Health Events

Island House organizes a range of public events that bring health care professionals together with local residents in an informal environment. For example, supporting the outreach of the London Chest Hospital to run bilingual workshops with men about TB, or running annual women's health fairs.

For the last 5 years, Island House has been a centre actively used by both Christian and Muslim faith groups. We house St Pauls URC chapel and Isle of Dogs Bangladeshi Cultural Association hold Quran classes and friday prayers in our main hall. We hold a range of joint community seasonal events including Iftah, Eid and Christmas parties and a Christmas bazaar.

Participants from the two communities readily agree that this is an opportunity to engage with each other in joint activities to learn about each other and encourage community cohesion. We are doing this work to increase the links and understanding between Christian and Muslim communities on the Isle of Dogs, In 1993 a BNP councillor was elected amist fear and aggression. Island House was one of the organisations that worked in partnership to organise community opposition to racism. We believe that inter-faith dialogue is an essential element to ensuring underlying

During the summer of 2005 we worked together on an interfaith mosiac peace window with 16 local young people

(Click here to see the Interfaith Window feature)

We have recently setup the Isle of Dogs Christian - Muslim Partnership with Isle of Dogs Bangladeshi Cultural Association, Milwall Bangladeshi Association, the parish of christ and St John with St Luke (Church of England). Our programme of work which will hopefully commence in April 2006 included 3 elements (youth achievement, diaglogue and open house community events)

Click here to read the Interfaith Mural feature