Nishkam Mental and Emotional Wellbeing Service awarded funding from Eveson Trust
Nishkam Healthcare Trust is delighted to announce one of its key services – Nishkam Mental and Emotional Wellbeing Service – has been awarded £10,000 funding from Eveson Trust to help further develop mental health provision to local communities in Handsworth.
This service serves over 900 patients a year, with a team comprising two volunteer service leads, counsellors, student trainees, and administrative support. NMEWS is a much-needed and oversubscribed service in Handsworth, one of the most deprived areas in the UK, where people struggle to access to even basic primary care provision and, due to many barriers, mental and emotional wellbeing concerns are often picked up too late.
Launched in 2017 as a listening ear service with a single volunteer chaplain, the service was renamed as the Nishkam Mental and Emotional Wellbeing Service in 2021 when, at the request of Birmingham and Solihull CCG (as they were formally known), the service leads offered support for those suffering Long COVID, and the service was formally added to the NHS pathway. In 2025, the service was awarded funding as part of the Birmingham Fairer Futures Fund
The Eveson Trust has been set up in the memory of Mrs Violet Mary Eveson (1905-1993), born in Hertfordshire. Violet was the daughter of Wilfred Williams Woodward and Mary Fanny Woodward. Her father soon became one of the county’s most important landowners, and bought many farms in Herefordshire and Worcestershire, and with his skill as a hop farmer, became an immensely wealthy man by the time he died in 1938. Most of Violet’s life-time gifts are anonymous. Three major gifts from her fund have included £750,000 to reopen a cancer ward at Birmingham’s Children’s Hospital; £750,000 to RNLI for the purchase of a lifeboat and £440,000 to Hereford Health Authority for the Herefordshire Scanner Appeal.
Window display inside counselling room
““We are delighted and humbled to receive this funding from the Eveson Trust. Over the years, Nishkam Mental and Emotional Wellbeing Service has developed into an integral service within Nishkam Healthcare Trust and also the local communities in Handsworth. This funding will greatly help us to develop this service further, so we are able to reach more members of our community, which is desperately needed with the current local climate of worsening mental health outcomes.” ”