- Area:
- Scotland
- Release date:
- 12 7 2012
Young Start awards 16 grants to Scottish groups
Young people in Scotland will benefit from a diverse range of projects that will enable them to grow their talents in music and the arts, education and recreational activities, thanks to the latest round of grants from the Big Lottery Fund’s Young Start fund.
Scottish groups are sharing grants totalling £626,343 from this new fund which aims to help young Scots aged 8 to 24 reach their full potential through a range of fun, educational and employability projects. The Young Start investment comes from dormant bank and building society accounts that have seen no customer-initiated activity for at least 15 years.
Announcing today’sawards Big Lottery Fund Scotland Head of Communications John Fellows said: “These Young Start grants demonstrate the range of fantastic work carried out by Scotland’s voluntary and community sector to support our young people. These awards will not only benefit arts, education and recreational projects, but will also provide valuable support to young people who require additional support in their day to day lives, including young people living with tourette syndrome. We're delighted to be able to support projects which will ensure that young people who are most in need can get off to a flying start in life.”
Young people aged 16 to 19 in Edinburgh can hone their creative flair through the Impact Arts project Creative Pathways: Eco Chic Fashion Freak and Home, which receives £50,000. The project will provide 30 hard to reach young people living in Craigmiller, Portobello, Leith, Wester Hailes, Liberton and Gilmerton with the support, skills and confidence to progress towards accessing job seeking services, employment, volunteering, training or further education.
Budding musicians in Coaltown of Wemyss will benefit from music tuition through the Strike a Chord music project, which receives £27,350 to hire four professional music tutors to mentor a pool of 20 young people over two years. Once fully trained the young musicians will pass on their knowledge to new young project members, providing an alternative to the drink and drug scene in this rural town.
Young people aged 9 to 15 living with tourette syndrome will benefit from awareness training in schools through Tourette Scotland’s What Makes Me Tic project, which will help the young people, their peers and families to better understand their condition, thanks to an award of £22,250. The young people are often in denial about their disorder and this project will help them to accept and to be able to talk about what life is like for them as they gain confidence and feel more included.
The wellbeing of disabled young people is at the heart of Free Wheel North’s Special Needs Cycling project, which receives £49,900 to hire and train a project manager to run the Glasgow green special needs cycling centre. Young people from various groups, including special schools, can go for gold at the cycling track on a variety of special needs cycles, including tandems and the Grand Tourer – a cycle built for six.
A full list of awards announced today
- 784KB
Further Information
For more details contact the Big Lottery Fund Press Scotland Office
0141 242 1458
BIG advice line: 0300 123 7110 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
- Dormant accounts are defined in the Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Act 2008 as those which have seen no customer-initiated activity for at least 15 years.
- In September 2011 the Scottish Government formally issued instructions to the Big Lottery Fund to distribute dormant accounts funding for the benefit of Scotland’s voluntary and community sector.
- The Reclaim Fund Ltd. (RFL), which was established in March 2011 to receive and invest dormant account balances across the UK, transferred the first tranche of monies from dormant bank and building society accounts to BIG on 2 August 2011. Scotland will receive an 8.4% share of the total funds to be distributed.
- The Distribution of Dormant Account Money (Apportionment) Order 2011 prescribes that Scotland will receive 8.4% of the dormant accounts money to be made available for distribution by the Big Lottery Fund under the 2008 Act. The Big Lottery Fund has confirmed a grants budget of £3.7m to 31 March 2012 and an indicative budget of £5.2m for 2012/13. This gives an estimated total grants budget of £8.9m to 31 March 2013. It should be noted that the 2012/13 figure is a median projection and may go down or up.
- The Big Lottery Fund is committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need and has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since June 2004 It also uses its expertise in grant-giving to distribute non-Lottery funding. Full details of the BIG funded programmes and grant awards in Scotland are available at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/scotland
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