OYA Organisation of Young Africans Request (Portfolio)

Organisation Description

We are based on a council estate in a highly deprived area of north-west London. We work with 150 young people of African/ African-Caribbean heritage every year. We help them to develop life goals and get decent qualifications. We encourage them to feel confident about their cultural identity and comfortable about their place as diaspora Africans, second-generation immigrants, in the UK and the positive contribution they can make.
ACTIVITIES
– academic support for 10-16-year-olds in English, Maths, Science
– one-year work paid work experience for 16-18-year-olds
– soft-skills development
– drama, dance, choral singing
– football, basketball, table tennis

What are they looking for?

Since 2001, we have occupied a small premises (60 square metres) on our local council estate, which is under regeneration. We were informed some months ago that the premises, which we have had at peppercorn rent from the council, will be demolished in November this year.
The Council has just found us a replacement and has told us we need a lawyer to represent us in the various negotiations to legalise our occupancy of the new premises.
We do not have a budget to pay a lawyer to go through the lease with us and advise us on any issues that may arise.
As we are education and culture people, we have next to no legal experience so we do not know how many hours work are involved. We hope it will not be too many. We get the impression that the pre-lease negotiations, e.g. concerning rent, can be done by ourselves. But the lease itself will obviously be in a language beyond our ken: we will need someone to translate it into plain English and advise us on the implications. Eternally grateful to anybody with relevant qualifications who can help.