Lottery grants grow healthy youngsters

Area:

Yorkshire and the Humber

Programme:

Young People's Fund Grants to Organisations

Release date:

6 2 2007

The grant is one of eleven awards worth over £1.1 million being distributed across the Yorkshire and Humber region today. These are the final grants to be 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.

Fundamental’s Food4Thought project will use an allotment site donated by the local council to grow fruit, vegetables and herbs and promote healthy eating amongst young people. They will also look at the possibility of selling surplus produce and plants, and other social enterprise options such as setting up a gardening service.

Clair Mason, Development Funder at Fundamental, welcomed the funding: “Food4Thought is a brilliant new project that is not only fun but will tackle many issues at the same time. Young people will get the opportunity to sow, grow, prepare and eat their own fruit and vegetables, look at healthy eating, learn about the environment and get out into the open and get some exercise.”

Young people aged 13 to 18 years old in deprived areas of York will also be developing their own environmental projects with the help of a £145,695 grant to BTCV. The young people will identify projects within their local communities and will be guided through the process of planning, developing and implementing their projects by BTCV and youth group staff.

Rachel Earnshaw, Community Education Project Officer from BTCV York said: "This is a fantastic opportunity for the young people of York who are keen to get stuck in and develop their own environmental projects. The funding will help BTCV to introduce York's youth to the individual and community benefits of volunteering while supporting their personal development through awards and training."

Big Lottery Fund Head of Yorkshire and Humber Region, Vanessa White said: “The projects receiving our funding today all recognise the great potential that young people have and what they can achieve with a little support. By building their self esteem, confidence and offering new opportunities, the Young People’s Fund will pave the way for a more positive future for these young people. This £1.1 million will make a real difference in our region, and it’s a great way to wrap up the Grants to Organisations strand of the Young People’s Fund.”

Other groups receiving grants today include the Riccall Recreation Development Group who will use £30,000 to construct a skate area and Humbercare Limited who will use £97,728 to provide mentor support for hard to reach young people struggling with the transition to adulthood and independent living in North East Lincolnshire.

In Todmorden, a grant of £140,000 will be used by the Acorn Centre to extend their youth café opening times to include later evenings and weekends. They will also refurbish some unused buildings at the rear of the centre to turn them into workshop space where young people can be trained to repair and maintain skateboards and BMX bikes.

Young people in the Goole area will have the opportunity to develop a range of new skills thanks to a £148,560 grant to the Community Development Company, and Kala Sangam in Bradford will receive £89,729 to explore, share and celebrate the differences and similarities between rural and urban youth, whilst building links between them.

Meanwhile, the Shooting Fish Theatre Company in Barton-Upon-Humber will develop and organise activities for young people with £19,654, and a peer mentoring service for teenage mothers in the Rotherham area will be introduced by the Grow Organisation thanks to a grant of £135,132.

Finally, in Leeds, the Hamara Healthy Living Centre and the Market Place Project for Young People will receive £147,852 and £99,494 respectively.

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.

• 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.

Tags