Community Centres are structures providing a broad range of support services to the residents of their local Municipalities, geared towards combatting poverty, social exclusion and any form of discrimination, as well as promoting employment.
Community Centres serve to bring a community together for group activities and to provide information and raise awareness. Every Community Centre provides information, advisory services, employment finding services, contributes to the development of cultural activities and fosters personal and social prosperity and develops social assistance and aid actions. Through the Centre, a community can be geared to focus on local development and social actions in the sectors of health, education, employment and leisure.
The objectives of Community Centres are to provide a wide range of social and other services, so as not to disperse funds and to supply integrated intervention across many groups of the population and to support the Social Protection / Social Services Directorate of the local Municipality.
The Centres, through referrals, bring beneficiaries into contact with individual agencies and services (local government services, public services, volunteer organizations, organizations with a social character, etc.) in order to serve their needs, thus making good use of the said agencies and Services.
Benefits: The aim of Community Centres is to develop a local reference point, which receives, serves and connects citizens with all the social programmes and services being implemented in an intervention area.