| Oasis Charitable Trust | |
| Founder: | Steve Chalke |
| Founding Location: | United Kingdom |
| Type: | Charitable organization |
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| Services: |
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| Owners: | --> |
Oasis Charitable Trust, commonly known as Oasis, is a United Kingdom-based Christian registered charity. It was founded by the Reverend Steve Chalke in September of 1985. Chalke had been assistant minister at Tonbridge Baptist Church, Kent, for four years. He left this job with the aim of setting up a hostel for homeless young people. Oasis now has over 5,000 staff in the United Kingdom as well as thousands more volunteers.
Since its foundation Oasis has also developed into a family of charities now working on four continents (11 countries) around the world, with the goal of delivering housing, education, training, youthwork and healthcare. Oasis is now a voluntary sector provider, delivering services for local authorities and national governments, as well as self funded initiatives.[1]
Oasis currently works in 51 local neighbourhoods – 35 of which are in the United Kingdom.
In 2003, under Steve Chalke's leadership, Oasis became responsible for the buildings of Christ Church and Upton Chapel, in Waterloo, central London, and started working with the existing members there to form what was originally known as Church.co.uk. (now named Oasis Church, Waterloo).
Christ Church and Upton Chapel was founded as Surrey Chapel in 1783, and was to provide a major influence in the start of the ragged school movement – which provided schools for local children from poor homes – and also supported the birth of the Shaftesbury Society, the YMCA and the Bible Society. In the 1800s it was also influential in the anti-slavery movement; William Wilberforce and friends made its building a venue for many of their anti-slavery meetings, and its spire, built in 1867, is named the Lincoln Memorial Tower, donated in memory of Abraham Lincoln who was both inspired and supported by in his work to achieve the emancipation of the slaves of North America through the network of friends based in London.
Since 2003 a wide range of community services focused on the half-mile radius around the building, have been developed including a children's centre, a primary school, a secondary school, various adult education opportunities, a food bank, a debt advice centre, a community farm, a coffee shop, as well as becoming responsible for the local public library and launching various other youth projects and programmes.[2]
Further Oasis churches have developed running alongside the communities of Oasis Academies in Salford, Oldham, Brightstowe, Bristol, Enfield, Southampton (Lord's Hill & Mayfield), Immingham and Wintringham.[3]
The Oasis church network has five values which are at the heart of their work: inclusion, interdependence, intimacy, involvement and influence.[4]
Stop The Traffik is one of the Oasis subsidiary charities. It is a coalition working in nearly 100 countries and in partnership with multiple other charitable organisations, businesses and anti-trafficking agencies with the goal of disrupting and preventing human trafficking.[5]
Oasis Community Housing delivers services for vulnerably housed and homeless people, in the North East as well as in South London. Annually it supports over 1000 people with housing needs.[6]
Oasis Community Learning is a multi-academy trust and one of Oasis Trust's subsidiary charities. It has an UID of 4076 [7] It acts as an umbrella group to govern the Oasis Academies which are schools classed as academies. The first three Oasis academies in Enfield Lock, Grimsby and Immingham, opened in September 2007, with six more, two in Bristol, two in Southampton, two in Croydon and one in Salford, opening in September 2008. Since then, Oasis has grown to be one of the country's largest Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) and is currently responsible for 53 schools around England; a mix of primary, secondary and all-through academies.[8]
The trust have guided forty schools out of special measures. Chalke says "Turning round a school is sometimes a quick fix, it really, truly is. And sometimes it’s a really long, hard, hard job". A few schools have been problematic for decades, according to Chalke.
Oasis has a long-term strategy for enhancing the performance of its schools. Firstly it has devised a standard curriculum. Secondly it has invested in staff training, and thirdly, through its Horizons scheme it is providing each member of staff and student with a tablet.[9]
Horizons is a scheme to upskill each adult and child in the Oasis Community Learning group by loaning them an Apple iPad tablet so they can access enhanced on-line learning both together in class and at home.[11] Oasis explains that this
Oasis took over the management of the Medway Secure Training Centre (Medway Children's Prison) from G4S and HM Prisons Service; the facility was scheduled to reopen in March 2021.[13] The focus will be on rehabilitation not retaliation and the children and young people will be called students, not prisoners or inmates. Through education and a co-curriculum, Oasis hopes to develop a pathway for them towards that day that they can follow after they leave. There will be capacity for 64 students aged between 12 and 17 who may be staying from a few days to several years.[14]
In June 2019 the Ministry of Justice announced that they had awarded Oasis the long-term contract to run the UK's first ‘Secure School’. Chalke explains that Oasis will offer a therapeutically informed education and health care based alternative to youth prison. He also recognises that "The challenge is huge...we have been given a massive responsibility. I realise that the reputation of the Ministry of Justice and the reputation of the whole of Oasis depends on this."[15] The Oasis Secure School, which will be known as Oasis Restore, will occupy the site of the Medway Secure Training College (formerly known as Borstal) which was previously run by G4S until 2016 when a BBC Panorama documentary exposed the level of drugs and violence in the jail and the government removed their contract.[16] Oasis Restore will open at the end of May 2024.