VES started as an outreach idea by Croydon vineyard church to give free teas and coffees to the people on the streets of croydon. from there, we saw that asylum seekers and refugees were a huge part of the life of croydon - so we decided to help
We started by giving coffees to people on the streets, and now we deliver English proficiency classes to people across Croydon. The team has grown from just a couple of church volunteers into an organisation of over 25 weekly volunteering staff. Vineyard English School is primarily funded by Croydon Vineyard Church. It is a gift to the people of Croydon and beyond. We love nothing more than seeing the people of Croydon receive love and support from our family of Church and VES.
CV Street Cafe
The genesis of VES came in the early days of Croydon Vineyard - around 2015. The church had a heart to be good news to the people of Croydon, and show Jesus’ compassion to the last, the least and the lost. An obvious place to start was the queue outside Lunar House…
Lunar House, in central Croydon, is one of the ‘front doors’ to the UK - where people claim asylum in the UK for the first time. There were regularly queues of people outdoor waiting to start their applications so a small team from CV started to go and offer free teas and coffees to the people there.
It became obvious that, something which the people there needed most was English language education. We found out that a person is not eligible for government language provision until they have been in the country for 6 months, so a small team borrowed a backroom of a local church hall and began offering free conversational English language classes in order to be a blessing and demonstrate the compassion of Jesus.
At its heart, VES is a ministry of welcome and compassion done in Jesus’ name as part of Croydon Vineyard Church. Our goal as an organisation is to offer excellent educational classes. We always welcome, we always seek to show compassion, and we always want to share the good news about the Kingdom of God.