Funding for this project has now ceased.

The Big Lottery-funded Life in London Project, was a Family Learning project, run jointly between Wandsworth and Croydon councils, to engage families from the most deprived wards within each borough in learning about social enterprise and digital media.

Over three years the project exceeded planned targets and has engaged over 17000 adults and 19000 children from a variety of families who have experienced social isolation, offending and disability,

Families from an ESOL background and lone and teenage parents made a great contribution to the project which also successfully engaged with a large number of fathers and grandfathers.

Working with experienced film makers, families learnt film making skills and, through the use of film, the ‘voices’ of many marginalised families within the community have been heard. These films can be viewed on this website in the ’Media Gallery’ section.

Families reported that as a result of engaging with the activities offered, they are better placed to support their children in school, relationships between family members have improved, leading to greater community cohesion, and learning new skills, such as how to establish a social enterprise, has developed confidence in the employment market and in taking up other training opportunities.  

During the project, the Family Learning provision in Wandsworth was inspected by OFSTED and graded as ‘outstanding’.  The Life in London project was praised and case studies of work with fathers were used to highlight best practice at an OFSTED conference.   In addition, through the project, the capacity of over 178 organisations has been expanded and they have been supported in offering a wide and diverse range of family learning activities, with additional support to sustain their activities beyond the lifetime of this project.

This funding has enabled both boroughs to develop innovative and groundbreaking projects which could not have been funded without the flexibility provided by the Big Lottery grant.