Why ‘Accelerating Welcome’ matters.
by Beth Worku-Dix, Mission Area Lead.
New Beginnings, Shared Experiences
Across the United Kingdom, new beginnings are always unfolding. Every day, people arrive seeking safety, opportunity, or simply a fresh start. A family relocates, a new job opportunity arises, a student arrives for their first term, each carrying the quiet challenge of newness and finding their footing, learning the unfamiliar, and beginning again in a place that is not yet home.
In 2006, I was one of them. I arrived in the UK seeking safety and the chance for a new, better beginning. Amid the culture shock, the weather, and the bustle of London, I remember a sense of relief, anonymity, and hope. Yet once the first excitement faded, as I waded through the asylum system and learned to navigate the structures of daily life, what became essential to my wellbeing were the connections and communities I was fortunate to find along the way.
To be new is to stand at the edge of belonging. It is a moment filled with both hope and uncertainty, when the need for connection is greatest and the pathways to connection are hardest to find. This experience touches millions every year and shapes lives and communities in ways both visible and unseen.
An Invitation to Reimagine Welcome
At Neighbourly Lab, we see this moment of newness as an invitation and an opportunity to reimagine how we welcome. Over the past four years, we have worked to understand how people can connect, settle, and flourish faster and more easily wherever they arrive. Through partnerships with local authorities, universities, community networks, and national initiatives, we have explored what it truly means to ‘accelerate welcome’ and transform the experience of being new into the experience of belonging.
‘Welcome’ is an environment and the living architecture of belonging.
It takes shape in the design of public spaces, the culture of workplaces, the openness of universities, and the warmth of neighbourhood networks. It lives in everyday places such as parks, libraries, supermarkets, WhatsApp groups, and community halls where people meet, talk, and form the small relationships that anchor them to a place.
Our research shows that these spaces form the invisible infrastructure that holds communities together. When we invest in them, connection flourishes. This was evident in our Pride in Place study with the Local Government Association, which explored how households across England experience pride, rootedness, and belonging. People spoke about the importance of neighbourliness, local familiarity, and shared care for the places they call home. Their answers were simple and powerful: belonging begins when people feel seen, trusted, and connected to others around them.
Listening Turns Welcome into Action
Listening turns welcome into action. The most successful initiatives begin with people’s experiences and grow through their stories.
Through our partnerships, we have seen how deep listening and co-design change the way communities connect. In the Community Engagement Learning Partnership with thirteen London boroughs, we worked alongside councils and residents to understand what real connection looks like at neighbourhood level. What we learned is that residents already hold the answers – and when they are invited to co-create solutions, community connection strengthens from within.
Belonging as Essential Infrastructure
Across all Neighbourly Lab projects, a clear pattern continues to emerge – belonging grows through design, everyday interaction, and shared responsibility. It is sustained through the networks, relationships, and rituals that tie people to place.
When those networks are nurtured through inclusive services and simple acts of welcome, communities grow stronger, more cohesive, and more resilient.
As our towns and cities continue to evolve, the need to accelerate welcome will only increase.
- For policymakers, this means recognising belonging as essential infrastructure.
- For public services, it means designing with those who are new as carefully as we design for those who are settled.
- For communities, it means keeping open the small gestures that say, you are part of this too.
Building a more welcoming society is not the work of any single institution but a collective effort. When policymakers, public services, and communities design with connection in mind, belonging becomes part of the civic infrastructure that holds society together.
A National Network for Welcome
Neighbourly Lab has spent the past four years exploring how welcome is designed and experienced across the UK – our work has shown that welcome lives in many forms: in libraries and leisure centres, in city squares and digital neighbourhoods, and in the everyday gestures that help people feel at home. These insights are now shaping how we work nationally, through a new phase of collaboration: The Welcome Coalition.
The Welcome Coalition is a national network designed to support, inform, and amplify local welcoming efforts across the United Kingdom. Bringing together communities, practitioners, and organisations who share a belief in the power of welcome to strengthen society.
By linking local practice to national learning, the Coalition is creating a shared infrastructure for welcome. It is connecting initiatives, building evidence, and nurturing leadership at every level. Neighbourly Lab plays a central leadership role within this initiative and we are helping to shape the Coalition’s strategy and evidence base – mapping and evaluating networks of welcome across the country.
Welcome must be intentional, active, and shared by all.
When we accelerate welcome, we strengthen the social fabric of our communities, building a society where belonging is ordinary, difference is a gift and where everyone, whether new or settled, has a place to call home.
