07 September 2020

WDP & City Lit partner for a third time

Leading drug and alcohol charity WDP has renewed its partnership with City Lit, one of the country’s top destinations for evening, weekend and daytime courses, for a third successive year. City Lit will be offering WDP service users access to an array of online and face-to-face courses across a wide range of subject areas, in exchange for their hard-won Capital Card points.

The Capital Card is an award-winning reward card scheme which empowers WDP’s service users and helps them on their recovery journey. They can earn points by engaging in drug and alcohol treatment and spend their points on positive activities and products in their local community at Spend Partners, such as cinemas, gyms or eateries.

Some of the fantastic feedback from service users who have had already had the opportunity to attend courses at City Lit includes:

  • “After 18 months of hard personal work, being given something that I would not have done for myself made a big difference to my confidence.”
  • “Learning a new skill and discovering something that I thought I could not do was magical; when you are working through really difficult/painful experiences to be reminded that you can learn new skills and succeed is a huge prize.”
  • “It’s given me more confidence to be amongst other people, reason to get up in the morning and look forward to my day, it lifted my depression and has also given me a different perspective on life.”

Yasmin Batliwala, Chair of WDP, said: “We are delighted to be continuing our partnership with one of our first Spend Partners, City Lit. This collaboration will provide a vast range of opportunities for our service users to learn new skills, develop their interests or take up a new hobby. To be able to look ahead to the future and have these options is hugely beneficial and invaluable in supporting our service users in their recovery journey.”

Phil Chamberlain, Executive Director External Engagement at City Lit, said: “I am thrilled that we are continuing our partnership with WDP. Building on the success of our long-term partnership, we’re excited to offer WDP service users access to an array of online and face-to-face City Lit courses in exchange for their hard-won Capital Card points. Together we will be able to support WDP service users in their recovery journey by rebuilding confidence, helping to regain a wellbeing equilibrium or upskilling to increase employability. This is the latest offer in a long collaboration between our two organisations and we look forward to developing our partnership further in the future.”

For more information about the Capital Card®, visit www.capitalcard.org.uk.

About City Lit

City Lit is the country’s leading adult education college, famous for “Bringing people together to enrich lives through learning.” Since 1919, City Lit has welcomed thousands of Londoners every year, with well over a million people having benefitted from our unique offering. Londoners from all walks of life come together to try something new, learn a new skill or follow a passion. City Lit caters to a diverse group of adult learners – professionals, retirees, deaf students and learners with severe disabilities, ranging from 19 to those in their 90’s. City Lit offers a wide range of online and face-to-face courses in performing and visuals arts, languages, humanities and social sciences.

For more information, visit https://www.citylit.ac.uk/ or contact kim.snijders@citylit.ac.uk