The Pepper Pot Centre (PPC) was established by Pansy Jeffrey in 1981 to combat discrimination, isolation, depression and loneliness amongst the growing generation of Caribbean older people living in London.  It was also designed to empower them to take charge of their own lives after sacrificing so many of their youthful years for the United Kingdom. 

 

Centre offers culturally specific services that are open to all communities in the Royal Borough Kensington & Chelsea.  The Centre offers its members a culturally specific familiar environment, hot meals, care, advice, and access to various social services. It promotes healthy ageing and an independent living, thus avoiding the need hospitalisation.  The Centre is well respected amongst all communities and it is used as a model of excellence in terms of delivery of culturally specific service to the communities of African and Caribbean origin. It also provides a demonstration of how communities can preserve their heritage. 

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The Pepper Pot aims to keep the community cohesive, happy and supported by offering a level of hospitality and service that promotes physical health and mental stimulation. In the 1970s, Pansy Jeffrey, who was working at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau, heard tales of hardship faced by the early Caribbean settlers who had come to London to furnish the labour market in the 1950s and the 1960s and on retirement found themselves isolated and lonely in a foreign country.

In 1981 Pansy Jeffrey and her CAB colleague, Bridget Davies, organised a lunch time soup and served it to  half dozen Caribbean pensioners who otherwise had not much to do and nowhere to meet their own peers. It was a very happy gathering with fellow members of the Caribbean community enjoying a traditional meal and talking shop. For these compelling reasons Pepper Pot Centre stirred into life.Back in the 1970s, Pansy, who was working at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau, heard tales of hardship faced by the early Caribbean settlers who had come to London to furnish the labour market in the 1950s and the 1960s and on retirement found themselves isolated and lonely in a foreign country. In 1981 Pansy and her CAB colleague, Bridget Davies, organised a lunch time soup and served it to the half dozen Caribbean pensioners who otherwise had not much to do and nowhere to meet their own counterparts. It was a very happy gathering fellow Caribbean’s enjoying a traditional meal and talking shop. Thus The Pepper Pot Day Centre stirred into life.