The Halpern Charitable Foundation (Nucleus Arts)
The Halpern Charitable Foundation was founded in 2002, achieving charitable
status in March 2003. It was set up initially to meet three particular aims – to
provide affordable space for artists to work and exhibit in Medway; to help
people with mental and/or physical illness/disability; and as a backstop for the
Chatham Memorial Synagogue, should it ever be in real financial difficulty
with no other avenue left.
Since then the Foundation has refined and expanded its ideas somewhat. We
realised that in addition to providing studio and exhibiting space at affordable prices
to artists, we needed to help break down the barriers some of the public felt in
accessing contemporary arts. We realised that there were a lot of people on the
edges of society, not feeling included within that community; we have found that
using the arts to enable these groups to re-integrate into the wider community is
tremendously effective. Through this we have helped many people including Kent
association for the Blind, Pathways (who provide services to people with mental
health issues), Kent Autistic Trust, the elderly, groups of people with head injuries
who have found Nucleus Arts very stimulating, Art for Life (a Rochester-based group
for people with mental disabilities); we have worked with the Youth Protection team
and others to help kids at risk of offending; we are currently looking at working with
various ethnic groups to see how we can help them in the same manner.
The Foundation has helped other groups too: we have acted as a catalyst
elsewhere, giving advice from our experiences (good and bad) to other groups
wanting to set up arts services in their areas. Several other art centres have been
set up in other parts of the country based on our model.
Whilst we could give a donation to a single person in need, it is within our sights to
make that donation to a group that really needs our catalytic help, for example
buying a property to convert into a safe haven for people with mental health
problems. We have had experience of converting properties into medium term
hostels for people with mental illness in Rochester and Chatham, and we have
recently completed the new property at 114, Maidstone Road, Chatham; this
provides a real home (in some the cases the first one they have had) for 8 peoplewe anticipate extending the provision by 2 units in the near future.
We appreciate that it may seem that our three objects are disparate, and it is true
that there is no immediate link between the Synagogue and our other objects.
However there is a clear link between the provision of Arts and the relief of mental
illness and mental and physical disability. Workshops are available to such people
on request; indeed artists and exhibitors have been known to give one-to-one
workshops for people with disabilities. We hope to continue working on these links,
expanding so that we can help as many different groups as possible; aiming for a
truly inclusive society