The Mayor’s Resilience Fund reveals the winning innovators
10 London-based initiatives have been named as winners in the Mayor’s Resilience Fund, and will receive £40,000 each to implement their solution.
The winning ideas were announced today at a virtual event led by Rachael Burford, local democracy reporter at the Evening Standard. Delivered in partnership with the Mayor of London, the Fund supports the development of innovative products and services to address socially impactful issues facing London, helping us emerge stronger from Covid-19 and ensuring the capital is prepared for future disruptive challenges.
The 35 finalists, who were selected in May 2021, worked with a Resilience Partner – of which Thrive LDN was the lead partner on the Bereavement Services Challenge – to create new ways of bolstering the city’s resilience and drive for growth.
Each finalist was awarded £10,000 each to refine their solutions in preparation for this stage of the challenge. The winning 10 innovators will now have until October 2021 to further develop their solutions, using the £40,000 they have been awarded today.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “The pandemic has resulted in us all having the most turbulent, challenging experiences of our lives but the Winners of the Resilience Fund are a shining light of the great ingenuity and positivity of business in London.
This is an example of the fortitude and innovation at the heart of the city’s businesses. Together, we can turn ideas into real solutions that help to drive us forward, out of the shadow of the Coronavirus and into the strong, vibrant, resilient capital we know and love.”
Selected by a panel of expert judges, the winning finalist for the Bereavement Services Challenge was charity Apart of Me’s Loss in Translation, a peer-led grief activism project that aims to empower young people to transform their grief into compassion. The team will work together with young people from minority ethnic backgrounds and through the Loss in Translation initiative will aim to reduce the risk of complicated grief.
Lead UX Designer for Apart of Me, Jenna Maudlin said: “Apart of Me is absolutely thrilled to have won the Mayor’s Resilience Fund’s Bereavement Services Challenge! Winning will give us the opportunity to work alongside Thrive LDN, as well as organisations such as the GLA’s Peer Outreach Team and BAMEStream to develop the Loss in Translation toolkit with young Londoners.
“This is such an amazing opportunity for our project and it will give us the ability to help support bereaved young Londoner’s from minority ethnic backgrounds who have been impacted by Covid-19, empowering them to transform their grief into compassion.”
Explore Apart of Me
The Apart of Me bereavement app has been co-created by experts in child psychology and bereaved young people, and translates bereavement counselling techniques into a magical 3D world.
Apart of Me has been working with London’s digital wellbeing service, Good Thinking and the bereavement app can be accessed through the Good Thinking website alongside a range of wellbeing resources for young Londoners.