Lottery opens stage door for West Midlands young people

Area:

West Midlands

Programme:

Young People's Fund Grants to Organisations

Release date:

6 2 2007

The Walsall Disability Information and Advice Line’s Drama 4 Life project will use drama techniques to improve participants’ basic skills and encourage young people to write scripts, design costumes and create sets.

Mark Ashbourne, Manager of Walsall DIAL said: “Accessing the performing arts used to be a big drama for physically disabled and sensory impaired children and young people in Walsall but the funding we have been awarded by The Young People’s Fund will allow us to make life a lot easier for all the budding Brad Pitts and Halle Berrys. Now the only big drama we will have to worry about is the Christmas Show and it goes without saying that everyone is invited!”

Young people in Bedworth will also be getting into the action and drama, as King’s Community Church Bedworth receives £149,840. Young people aged 16-19 years old will establish out of school dance and drama workshops to be held after school once a week during term time in secondary schools across Bedworth. Further workshops and performances will be held during the school holidays. The workshops will be written, designed and led by members of the youth group, enabling a range of disadvantaged young people to access and benefit from the creative arts.

Jenette Jones from King’s Community Church Bedworth explains the importance of the funding: "We are so excited about the funding from the Big Lottery, It will enable young people to find a voice in their community and get involved with the creative arts. This we believe will have a great impact on young peoples' personal, social and moral development".

Young people in Birmingham will become involved in aspects of theatre thanks to a £92,540 grant to Stage 2. This three-year project is a training initiative that combines a peer mentoring scheme, committees and individual development plans. It will equip young people with the skills that will enable them to go on to careers in the Arts or into other job areas where the transferable skills, knowledge and experience will give them a head start.

Big Lottery Fund Head of West Midlands Region, John Taylor, 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 £1.1 million going into projects in the West Midlands, it’s a great way to wrap up the Grants to Organisations strand of the Young People’s Fund.”

Other groups receiving grants from the Young People’s Fund today include the St Paul’s Community Development Trust in Birmingham who will use their £149,017 grant to run a twelve week accredited personal development training programme aimed at young people aged between 13 and 19 years of age who are not in education, employment or training.

A grant of £124,572 will go towards supporting young women in Wolverhampton who are experiencing issues around emotional, mental and physical health. The YWCA England and Wales project will develop the potential of the participants, aged between 12 and 16 years old to support one another, raise awareness of mental health issues in young people, promote community cohesion and help young people to overcome multiple disadvantages.

The Bewdley Youth Café will use £150,000 to provide a new meeting place run by and for young people, while Next Generation Youth in Whitchurch will use £30,000 to create a skate park designed and managed by young people.

Meanwhile, the Hadley’s People Partnership in Telford will tackle the socio-economic disadvantages faced by young people living in the deprived wards of Hadley and Leegomery with a £119,703 grant and Coventry Carers Centre will use £142,555 to give carers aged 11 to 18 years of age regular access to physical activity and arts sessions in a safe and supported environment.

Finally, a project providing groups of young people across isolated communities with opportunities to participate in voluntary activities and to shape the local environment will receive £123,664. Staffordshire Wildlife Trust Ltd will establish a Young People’s Environmental Citizenship Panel who will deliver twelve sustainable projects with young people across the area and provide training and support to young volunteers.

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 extension 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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