Always on
This project successfully funded on 6th October 2025, you can still support them with a donation.
Growth for Vida!
Hove, Brighton and Hove, United Kingdom
First target reached!
Adding a staircase to our studio is proving more difficult and costly than we had an...
Aim
We want to raise £15000 to install a staircase in our studio to facilitate access to the first floor studio and gym.
Growth for Vida also means Growth for Life!
We want Vida Active to be here for a very long time, working for everyone who needs it.
Vida Active has been running its fabulous classes for women and seniors on Blatchington Rd for over 3 years, changing lives in the process. We have pages of testimonials from older people sharing that they are stronger, fitter, more confident when walking, are better able to perform every day tasks and feel less pain. They also testify to a much improved social life, reducing isolation.
During this time, usage grew to the maximum the studio can accommodate without another access to its upstairs space: a studio and a gym for women.
The women love our small, friendly and safe gym, specially muslim women who can work-out without wearing a hijab, and females who prefer to exercise away from the male gaze. However, reaching upstairs is currently only possible via the back of the building, meaning users have to cross both studios to get to the gym area. Access is therefore limited to times when the ground floor is vacant.
To gain access to the first floor studio, members and hirers also have to walk through the ground floor studio. This lowers attendance to the classes and makes hiring out the studio to outside instructors difficult as we have to carefully co-ordinate class start times and late-comers cannot be allowed entry.
With stairs at the entrance of the building, more women will be able to use the facilities and revenue from hire will significantly go up. This increase will allow Vida to run more projects for older people that help to prevent falls, allows for a more independent life for longer, as well as preventing loneliness & isolation, benefiting the people themselves, their families, the community and the NHS.
If adding new stairs turns out to be not viable, we have a few alternatives:
1) We have already been in contact with the owner of the restaurant next door, who also owns the flat above the restaurant. The flat has an access door to our studio upstairs - currently blocked off. There would be a possibility of hiring the flat above the restaurant when/if it becomes available and re-open the access, allowing not only for another entry to our upstairs facilities but also adding more space to our gym.
2) Finding another venue nearby to move the gym to. This is another option but it would increase costs as we'd need another staff member at reception at all times.
Whatever happens, we will always thrive to grow and offer the best services we can offer, giving the limitations.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made