Objectives

Provide an inclusive community hub for social events, cultural functions and leisure activities – including English and mother-tongue classes – for anyone with an ethnic background living on the Wirral.

Give our service users a voice by providing people who can speak their language to advise and support them with their health, social care, education and welfare benefits’ needs.

Why it matters

People who’ve come to live here from another country face two huge barriers every single day of their lives: 

• Not being able to speak/read English well enough
• Not knowing how things work here

We remove these language and cultural barriers, as well as related anxieties, that make life so difficult for anyone who’s come to live here from another country. We explain how things work and navigate the systems and processes on their behalf, until they’re ready to do it for themselves.

In short, we open doors to essential services that are available to everyone.

Some real examples of why it matters

We know of someone who was due to have an operation and did not understand the instruction ‘nil by mouth’ in the hours preceding it and so the surgery had to be cancelled. Not only did that mean the person had to wait longer for important medical care but the resources of the hospital were also, sadly, not optimised. That could have been prevented so easily.

In another case, a Sri-Lankan lady was found unconscious in the road. She was taken to hospital by ambulance and treated. It turned out she was diabetic but couldn’t read the instructions on her medication.

We know of another instance where a woman in hospital could not be taken off a drip and sent home, releasing a hospital bed space, because she was dehydrated. The health workers didn’t know that culturally women of her ethnicity rarely drink tap water. Something else could have been substituted to hydrate her. Yet again this situation could have been prevented so easily.

Who are our service users?

It’s anyone who has an ethnic background living here on the Wirral, and whose first language is not English. So that’s immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

Many of our service users are from China and Hong Kong (we see a large number of older women from these communities and who have little to no computer skills). The rest make up a wide range of nationalities and include families and individuals.

They mostly hear about us via word-of-mouth, through their community, or friends and family. Some are referred to us as part of funded projects, such as from GP surgeries, hospitals, via the council (the latter’s resettlement team, or social services, for example) and other like-minded charities.

How we talk to our service users

All our staff speak languages other than English and interpret and translate across our teams, as needed. With the help of external support, we can interpret or translate across 52 languages. The most recent top six languages (between Apr ’23 and Jan ’24) that we’ve interpreted or translated in are as follows:

• All languages spoken by the Chinese combined
• Bengali
• Arabic
• Polish
• Kurdish
• Farsi

We’re overseen by a board of trustees who provide direction to WMO and are accountable for our work.

Nurie Lamb

Health Checks

Vision

Anyone with an ethnic background lives safely on the Wirral, free from discrimination and racial injustice, with equal and fair access to universal services, and can fulfil their aspirations.

Mission

We give our service users a voice, celebrate their diversity, promote multiculturalism and help address racism, supporting anyone with an ethnic background to live harmoniously together and with the wider community.

We tackle inequalities by providing professional, social and culturally-sensitive services that improve the overall health and wellbeing of people with ethnic backgrounds living here on the Wirral.

We interpret, translate and advocate for them – in particular the most vulnerable – to give them equal access to health, social care, universal benefits and education. We advise on any professional service that someone might need at any time in their life.

We also act as an inclusive community hub for social events, cultural functions and leisure activities.

Values

Respect

We treat everyone equally and with respect, celebrating and valuing diversity and difference while, at the same time, encouraging integration within the communities.

Partnership

We work closely with partners, collaborating, and supporting them to meet common goals, especially to address complex, long-standing problems experienced by our service users. By giving our service users a voice, we ensure their needs are at the heart of all partnerships.

Quality

We work to standards set by service level agreements and are committed to providing the highest possible professional service, including maintaining safe and confidential spaces for our service users and staff.

Caring

We treat all of our service users with kindness, compassion and empathy and are known for being approachable and welcoming.

History

The concept of a multicultural centre on the Wirral was born in 1986 when Asians, Chinese and the Vietnamese jointly applied for government funding with the help of Wirral Borough Council. It led to the formation of the Wirral Chinese Association and the Vietnamese Assocition, while the Wirral Asian Assocation developed independently. The then education department at Wirral Council applied for government funding and was successful.

Wirral Multicultural Organisation (WMO) was established as a company limited by guarantee and as a registered charity in 1993 to oversee the development of a multicultural centre.

Later, in 2002-03, thanks to some European funding, WMO added childcare and training facilities to its services.

Demand for what we do has increased considerably over the years. Since April 2009, we’ve been visited by people from more than 49 different ethnic backgrounds and have helped people aged between one week and 100 years old.