🌈Rainbow in Someone’s Cloud (RISC)

Rainbow in Someone’s Cloud (RISC) – is a community empowerment and wellbeing initiative that supports individuals facing mental health challenges, neurodiversity, physical disabilities, unemployment, poverty, and social isolation to build resilience, confidence, leadership, and sustainable community connection.

The programme will help participants overcome isolation and disempowerment by creating an inclusive and ongoing support system where people are both supported and empowered to support others, which is in line with the project’s guiding principle: “Be a Rainbow in Someone’s Cloud.”

The project will be delivered over two years, with funding being sought from the National Lottery combining structured coaching workshops, peer mentoring, leadership training, and community-led action projects. It will develop a network of resilient, confident individuals who go on to create real and measurable change in their lives and in their communities.

Project also aims to deliver actual tangible results to participants and members in terms of wholesome sustainable jobs, self-employment. businesses, volunteering, community involvement and mental health benefits as a result of being resilient and confident and having support of someone/the programme at the point of need.

Key Programme Components

1. Rainbow in Someone’s Cloud – Part 1 – Resilience

Purpose: To help participants cultivate emotional and mental resilience — a mindset free from the constraints of issues, circumstances and conditions, enabling them to take bold action towards life and work goals.
Format: 5.5-hour interactive group workshops held on Saturdays to remove barriers for unemployed and working participants.
Participants: 15–20 people per session (total 210–280 people over 2 years).
Delivery: Each workshop uses an immersive coaching conversation format (inspired by Socratic dialogue). Sessions include reflective exercises, demonstrations, discussion, coaching and personal planning. Participants create a 12-month “Merlin Plan” – a roadmap from their envisioned future back to the present.
Peer Support Element: Members of the RISC Community assist in producing the workshops, helping to set up, greet attendees, and support facilitation. This ensures participants learn through doing, while volunteers gain confidence, transferable skills, and experience. Assisting members also takes on personal outcomes that forwards their own life in some way into tangible results which supports their future.
Outcomes: Participants leave with a practical action plan, measurable self-assessed growth in confidence (average score 8.5/10 for satisfaction), and an invitation to join the RISC Community for continued peer learning, community engagement and volunteering. From experience approx. 40% joins the community)

2. Rainbow in Someone’s Cloud – Part 2 – Confidence

Purpose: To enable participants to experience that confidence is a choice, not a fixed trait, and to learn how to turn disadvantages into strengths.
Format: 5.5-hour immersive workshop (Saturday sessions).
Schedule: 7 per year (late February, March, June, July, September, October, November) = 14 over 2 years.
Participants: Around 70% of Resilience participants progress to Confidence (147–196 participants over 2 years).
Duration: 77 total workshop hours across 2 years.
Peer involvement: Volunteer assistants (graduates of Resilience sessions) again help run each session, deepening their own understanding while supporting newcomers. Again, assisting members also takes on personal outcomes that forwards their own life in some way into tangible results which supports their future.
Outcomes: Participants learn to take practical action even when uncertain, recover from setbacks, and turn limiting beliefs into productive goals. Average participant feedback scores: Effectiveness 9.2/10, Presentation 9.6/10, Confidence gained 90%.
Post-session engagement: 50-60% of attendees go on to join the RISC Community.

3. RISC Community Sessions (awaiting funding)

Purpose: To extend and apply workshop learning into real-world outcomes and tangible personal results.
Format: 5.5-hour quarterly community gatherings, including reflection, peer coaching, and training in the “Full Circle” methodology, supporting others in one’s own network.
Schedule: 4 per year, 8 sessions total over 2 years.
Attendance: 70–100 members per session.
Duration: 44 total workshop hours over 2 years (52 hours including set-up and pack-down).
Activities:
- Coaching and mentoring circles.
- Planning Full Circle Projects (e.g., helping a family, neighbour, or community group solve a problem through collaborative action by local/own community).
- Networking, resource sharing, and celebration of progress.
- Occasional social gatherings (walks, picnics, faith and cultural celebrations, Christmas get-togethers).
Outcomes: Sustained mental wellbeing, accountability, mutual aid, and visible community impact (e.g. supporting local mothers’ groups or anti-knife crime initiatives).

4. Train the Trainer: Be Free – Be a Leader – LEAP Programme (awaiting funding)

A 12-month intensive leadership training designed to create a self-sustaining pipeline of new community coaches and directors drawn from RISC participants/Community.

Part 1 – Be Free:

10 × 3.5-hour workshops (35 hours total + 10 hours setup).
Weekly small-group coaching (30 minutes per week) for progress tracking.
Culminates in A Special Event About Freedom (10-hour transformational day).
Focus: self-awareness, emotional freedom, and leadership readiness.

Part 2 – Be a Leader:

4 major workdays (7–10 hours each) spaced over 4 months, with interspersed 3.5-hour in person support sessions.
Total 60+ hours of structured training and group practice.
Focus: leading with empathy, communication mastery, and producing tangible major personal results.
Graduates lead a Graduate Coaching Session to paying guests (£25 each; 16 guests = £400 income). Aim: to give away what they got to others so that they can always keep it.

Part 3 – LEAP (Leadership, Empowerment, Action, Performance):

4 workdays (Leadership, Empowerment, Action, and Performance) – 5 hours each, spaced 4 weeks apart.
Participants plan, fund, and deliver their own Resilience and Confidence workshops, supported by RISC mentors.
Each new trainer leads one public Resilience workshop as their final qualification event (8 trainees × 5.5 hours each = 44 hours).
Each leader generates income (£15 × 5 guests × 8 leaders = £600).
Graduates formally join the RISC directorship and continue delivering funded workshops in their own communities supervised and supported by Head coach RISC committee.

Total training 166 hours over one year.
Graduates continue with live on-the-job training for six months, becoming paid coaches and RISC directors with self-funded satellite projects of RISC groups of their own with support.

Supplementary Community Engagement

Quarterly informal community gatherings: walks, picnics, interfaith/intercultural celebrations, Christmas events.
Online WhatsApp and community groups for mental wellbeing, employment, volunteering, health & fitness, these will be moderated by RISC members to ensure a safe, supportive environment.
RISC Management committee comprising of 10 members of RISC community and Graduate Directors/Workshop leaders of train the trainer to meet quarterly for governance of the project.

Overall Impact (Expected 2026–2028)

300+ total participants supported.
90+ into employment (30%).
75+ into volunteering or training (25%).
114+ active RISC Community members.
8 new qualified community trainers.
8 new satellite RISC communities launched in London.

As a participant of this workshop you are invited to join RISC and become a volunteer to master the ideas of this workshop and to be contributor, a rainbow in someone’s cloud, knowing that one day you will get that support as well when you most need it. This is in addition to any current volunteering you do and does nit intend to replace that.

From a member

Digital Isolation Mature Adult Looking for work

Am a 59-year-old lady. I can only discuss from my experiences. This big problem being unemployed, digitally non-confident and lacking interconnection. With the new digital society, we were brought up in a society where everything was interpersonal. You had a conversation with a human being on the other side of the counter. Now it’s all digital. Am on universal credit because of lack of digital skills. I have spent this week enforcing my commitment to universal credit. By digitally looking for work. I came across a company. I had no problem putting my CV and Cover letter on the browser. Due to lack of knowledge and fear of these devices I lost my confidence and never received the job. Now things are different I am digitally confident I am connected to a community, I am confident of asking for help and helping others.