- Area:
- Northern Ireland
- Programme:
- Awards for All Northern Ireland
- Release date:
- 15 2 2012
Eleven groups from the Belfast area are today sharing in a grants windfall from the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All programme.
The small grants programme is awarding grants totalling over £84,141 to the local groups as part of a grants roll-out of £554,553 to 66 groups across Northern Ireland (see separate attachment for full 
list of Northern Ireland awards
- 77KB).
Awards for All offers community, voluntary and statutory groups the chance to apply for small grants of between £500 and £10,000 that will have a big impact on local communities and the lives of people most in need.
Belfast Hospital School has been awarded £4,800 to develop a centre in Belfast for young people aged 4-18 who are not ready to return to a mainstream school because they are dealing with mental ill health, anxiety, low self-esteem and stress.
The project will support the young people to get involved in education again by taking part in lessons, groups work and therapies. “Belfast Hospital School provides education for young patients suffering physical and mental ill health or injury in the Royal and Musgrave hospitals and other outreach centres,” explained Michelle Godfrey, principal of Belfast High School.
“Up to now, young people suffering from anxiety based school refusal had to be educated at home by tutors from the school, but this only reinforced the problem of their isolation. But since October the Hospital School has borrowed rooms at the Link Centre in Barrack Street where we offer these young people support, and this grant will now allow us to rent our own dedicated space in the building.
“There are a whole range of reasons why these children do not attend school. They are often very vulnerable and some of the children have not been in mainstream school for at least a year.“
She continued: “This is a way to provide them with therapy and to involve them in vocational education and give them careers advice so they can go into further or higher education. Coming to this school three or four days a week not only has huge benefits for them academically, but they have the chance to interact with people of their own age.”
Geraldine Taylor’s 14-year-old son Conor has just returned to mainstream education after attending lessons in the centre. “Conor would not have been able to go back to school only for the support he got,” she said. “It was a big relief to see him going out the door, even just for a couple of hours a day. It got him socialising again and built up his confidence as well as getting him into a routine. It has been an absolute Godsend.”
Jigsaw Community Counselling Centre, which provides a counselling service to people living in and around the North Belfast area, has also been awarded £10,000 to provide parents and children's clinics at a range of schools.
Frank Hewitt, Big Lottery Fund NI Chair, said: “The Big Lottery Fund’s NI Awards for All programme funds health, education, environment and community projects that help people bring about positive change in their lives, improve health and well-being, develop skills and create safer communities.
“The application process is simple and accessible and shall remain so, making it easy for applicants to successfully apply for small pots of funding that can have such a big impact on local communities and lives.”
Application forms and guidance notes are available to download at www.awardsforall.org.uk
For more details call us on 028 9055 1455, or e-mail us at enquiriesni@biglotteryfund.org.uk
For further information contact
Andrew Kennedy, Press Office Big Lottery Fund: 9055 1426
Mobile: 07788 640 791
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Notes to Editors
- The changes to Awards for All come after each distributor developed their funding programmes so they could offer specific small grants schemes that would better meet the needs of their sectors.
- The Big Lottery Fund (BIG), the largest distributor of National Lottery good cause funding, is responsible for giving out 46% of the money raised for good causes by the National Lottery.
- in need and has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since June 2004. The Fund was formally established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
- Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to good causes. As a result, over £26 billion has now been raised and more than 330,000 grants awarded across arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment
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