Sheri Lawal, founder of Choices, pictured centre

A CHARITY head is calling for black community leaders to rally together to create a grassroots black community centre.

Sheri Lawal, the founder and CEO of Choices, a charity that focuses on young black people’s access to education, training, and employment, has been trying to found a black community centre in Islington for the last decade.

She said her determination was reignited during the Covid virus crisis, when she started a food bank run out of the back of her car outside her charity’s office in Archway.

“Black people became the face of Covid, and I just thought, ‘we really do need to figure out how we’re going to deliver these services properly, and how we’re going to make sure that these ­people are well looked after, and that we have a safe space to actually do what we need to do’,” said Ms Lawal, who has been running her charity for 13 years.

She initially started this process through Islington Council, who she says promised her a space for a centre but have not followed through.

Last year, the council offered her a space in Hornsey Road but she would have to apply alongside other applicants and hope for the best.

“I don’t think this road that I’ve been trying to pursue with the council is really working out,” she said. “I’ve given up on it, you’re just told ‘you need to talk to this person, no this person, no that person’. As a black community we can do better. We need to work together and maybe we can do something for ourselves.”

Ms Lawal added: “We want a place where we can deliver services for black people, by black people, and if that doesn’t come from the council, we’ll find another way.

“I’m looking for a multi-purpose building where people can have a safe space where they know they can come to and know they will be understood.”

Ms Lawal said that the centre would offer a chance for black Islington community leaders to expand on what they’re already offering: “Education, training, employment, food poverty – the whole nine yards. One of the main things is support for families and young people. We need a place where parents can come and say ‘I’m having issues with my son or my daughter’ because we don’t want to just be able to sort out housing benefits and stuff like that, we need to be able to cover the whole thing – the multiple issues that people face.

“It’s like what AgeUK does; their services are geared towards the elderly, and ours are geared towards the black community.”

Ms Lawal is asking anyone interested in being involved in founding the centre, to contact her on info@choiceslondoncic.com.

A spokesperson for the council said: “We are committed to establishing a Black Cultural Centre in the borough that supports the needs of all of our black communities and celebrates their rich cultures.

“We are engaging in meaningful dialogue, working with residents from Black African and Caribbean heritage to ensure the project is representative of diverse black culture and is developed and delivered in partnership with the community.

“We will be inviting community organisations to bid, asking them to demonstrate how they will support the needs of the black community from the site.”