Plymouth youth rig for action as regions nets lottery funding

Area:

South West England

Programme:

Young People's Fund Grants to Organisations

Release date:

6 2 2007

The £88,486 grant to Plymouth Youth Sailing Club is one of six awards being distributed across the South West today. The grants are awarded under the Young People’s Fund’s Grants to Organisations strand, which has given out £40 million to voluntary and community groups across England.

The Plymouth Youth Sailing Club is a watersports club that provides a safe environment where young people can learn or improve their sailing skills. They will use their Lottery good causes money to deliver after school, weekend and school holiday sailing sessions. Transport will also be provided to enable young people from all around Plymouth to access the Sailing and Watersports Centre.

Adrian Kemp MBE, Commodore, Plymouth Youth Sailing Club said: “Plymouth Youth Sailing are delighted to have received funding and support from the Big Lottery Fund. We know this will help us to achieve our key priorities in providing inclusive sailing activities for young people working both with our new and existing partners. Plymouth’s history is embedded with the sea, it’s the city’s most impressive natural asset and we hope to get more young people making the most of this natural resource.”

Also in Plymouth, the Wednesdays project will establish a youth group for young people of secondary school age with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD). These young people often have problems with reading and writing, but also with social skills and social interaction. The project will use their £49,570 grant to run a youth group that incorporates social and life skills training.

Claire Paddon, Chairperson of Wednesdays, welcomed the funding: “We are extremely pleased to receive this money from the Big Lottery Fund. What a great difference it will make to young people with ADHD and ASD in Plymouth and the surrounding area. Having three years worth of funding means that our project will be sustainable beyond that period and it will make our long term prospects more achievable.”

Honicknowle Commnet Ltd, another Plymouth project, has also scored funding of £70,000 this round. Youth workers will support a group of young people to develop a series of health related workshops addressing issues such as drugs, alcohol, sexual health and healthy eating which will then be delivered to other young people in the local community.

Big Lottery Fund Head of South West Region, Mark Cotton, said: “The projects receiving our funding today all recognise the great potential that young people have and what can be achieved with a little support. By building their self esteem, confidence and offering support and new opportunities, the Young People’s Fund will pave the way for a more positive future for these young people. With this £350,000 going into projects in the South West, it’s a great way to wrap up the Grants to Organisations strand of the Young People’s Fund.”

Among the other groups to receive funding today include Young Gloucestershire Limited who have received £79,843 to train peer educators to deliver sessions to 1,500 young people who attend affiliated youth groups. Meanwhile, £38,245 has been given to View to Learning Ltd to offer workshops in music, dance, drama and circus skills in the regeneration area of Knowle West and surrounding areas of Bristol.

Finally, the Trelander and St Clements Tenants and Residents Association in Truro will provide a football project thanks to their grant of £15,432. Weekly football training will be put on, encouraging young people to work as a team, with participants planning and leading sessions.

Further information

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours contact: 07867 500 572
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102030
Textphone:  0845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Notes to Editors

• The Young People’s Fund in England was launched in September 2004. Funding from the Young People’s Fund open grants programme in England can be accessed through three specific strands: £10 million for applications from individuals, £40 million in grants to voluntary organisations/ partnerships, £27.6 million will go to national organisations for large projects.
• The Big Lottery Fund's Board has agreed to allocate a further £100m to the extension of the Young People's Fund programme in England. The money will be allocated in 2006 following a paper to the Big Lottery Fund’s Board that develops the possible options for the extension. These options will be developed to reflect the learning from our current programmes and to compliment the messages of the DfES Youth Green Paper that is to be published soon.
• The Young People’s Fund aims to put young people at the centre of creating, planning and delivering projects to achieve the following:

1. Being healthy: enjoying good physical and mental health and living a healthy lifestyle
2. Staying safe: being protected from harm and neglect and growing up able to look after themselves
3. Enjoying and achieving getting the most out of life and developing the skills for adulthood
4. Making a positive contribution: to the community and society and not offending or behaving anti-socially
5. Economic wellbeing: overcoming disadvantages to achieve their full potential in life.

• The success criteria for this programme include young people’s involvement at every stage of the project from start to finish and the project delivering on at least, two of the five Young People’s Fund programme aims. To be considered applicants will need to demonstrate how they intend to achieve both of these objectives.
• Big Lottery Fund is the joint operating name of the New Opportunities Fund and the National Lottery Charities Board (which made grants under the name of the Community Fund). The Big Lottery Fund, launched on 1 June 2004, is distributing half of all National Lottery good cause funding across the UK.
• The Big Lottery Fund is building on the experience and best practice of the merged bodies to simplify funding in those areas where they overlap and to ensure Lottery funding provides the best possible value for money. To date, the two merged Funds have committed more than £6 billion to initiatives with national, regional and local partners from the public, voluntary, charity and private sectors, with a particular focus on disadvantage.

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