Who we are

ROLI (Rhythms Of Life International) is a charity whose role is to help improve the quality of life of homeless people and those similarly disengaged from society.

We do this by currently providing one hot meal a day, 7 days a week, as well as clothes through donations that we receive from the local community. Our service users are homeless people as well as vulnerable or isolated men and women who are in danger of becoming homeless.

History

Roli was started in July 2008 by Andrew Faris, who drew on his personal life story and 4 years of homelessness in London.

After getting out of homelessness and returning to his career as a photographer, Andrew went to Kashmir in the wake of the 2005 earthquake. Once he saw up close the destructions of entire cities and the scale of distress he came back to London and decided that more had to be done on a daily basis and at a local level to help the homeless community with their basic needs, wherever and whenever possible.

The first step that Andrew took was to set up ROLI at 23 Crossway, Hackney, which was at the time the third poorest borough in the UK.

In a modest building and with the help of volunteers he started building relationships with the local community to secure daily supply of food and provide one hot meal a day to whoever wanted it.

Roli’s first meal was in July 2008. Since then the number of service users has grown and by February 2010, ROLI had served 34,000 meals and 52,000 sandwiches.

Over the coming months and years, we aim to continue to provide these meals and not only grow the number of services that we can provide but also extend these services to a wider area that Hackney alone.

Mission Statement

ROLI is a charity whose role is to help improve the quality of life of homeless people and those similarly disengaged from society.

Our people

Our most precious assets are the countless volunteers, past and present, that dedicate their time to collecting, cooking, and distributing the food as well as those who run the charity shop, help us on the administrative side and support our fund raising effort.

Financial information

At the present time, we do not receive any funding from the government or any nationwide organization. All the funding comes from our board of trustees, fundraising events as well as from our charity shop.

We receive daily food donations from local businesses.

Roli is run solely with volunteers, there are no paid staff.