Family wellbeing at heart of £3 million lottery roll out

Area:

Wales

Programme:

People and Places

Release date:

18 6 2007

A range of community projects are benefiting from the £3,105,857 from BIG’s People and Places programme which aims to bring people together to make communities stronger and to improve rural and urban environments. The People and Places programme has a total of £66 million in the pot for projects in Wales.

Projects promoting and supporting health and wellbeing are high on the list of today’s award beneficiaries. A grant of £40,522 will allow Amman Valley Dementia Carers Support Group in Carmarthenshire to provide respite care for sufferers of dementia for the benefit of carers and clients. The home will cater specifically for younger sufferers of dementia at certain times during the year.

The St Julian's Community Healthy Living Centre Association in Newport plan to spend £14,000 on a capital development grant that will pay for architect fees, legal fees and to secure lease and planning permission costs. The group aims to build a healthy living centre in the heart of the socially disadvantaged community of St Julian's. The new centre would enable people to learn about a healthy lifestyle, encourage people to take up regular exercise and provide facilities that the entire community can utilise. This centre will provide a fitness suite and a wide range of activities such as child obesity clinics, keep fit, pilates, baby massage, weight watchers, active 50+, dental care, drug and alcohol counselling and sexual health.

It can be an emotional and traumatic time for people diagnosed with cancer. That’s why Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres at Singleton Hospital, Swansea, will spend £330,956 on a project to provide a programme of psychosocial support to people affected by cancer in South West Wales. The grant over three years will fund the salaries of a psychologist and Cancer Support Specialist.

The wheels are literally turning for Sustrans Limited. A grant of £102,819 will allow them to target 19 areas around Wales and deliver the Saddles and Secateurs Volunteer Rangers programme to improve the use of the National Cycle Network in Wales.

In a project enveloping Central and West Tredegar as well as North and South Ebbw Vale, Tredegar Development Trust will spend £572,329 to establish a Well Being Programme to cover the areas of the 3 Communities First Partnership Boards. A Food Advisor will be employed with the funding.

Support to help families in Wales to cope with various issues also feature strongly under the latest round of awards. The Lampeter Family Centre in Ceredigion will spend £82,139 to extend the services provided by the centre by increasing opening hours, promoting accredited and non-accredited courses such as parenting skills, healthy lifestyles to increase confidence and encourage parents to seek further training or employment.

With the £335,273 they received, the Right From The Start project, which will extend the current family service in the County Borough of Caerphilly by employing a fathers' worker to support fathers in their role, develop their parenting role, support training needs, establish support groups and ensure inclusion. This should encourage more fathers to become volunteers and provide group support to each other, becoming more active members of their communities. A transitional worker will also be employed to work with children aged 10 - 13 to reduce bullying and aggressive behaviour and improve relationships between parent, child and school.

An award of £160,943 will help Scope to deliver the Face2Face scheme in the county of Bridgend, South Wales, to reduce the identified gaps of support for parents of children with disabilities and those with multiple and complex impairments. Volunteers will undertake the Face2Face parent befriending training programme to provide emotional, empathetic and practical support to parents of newly diagnosed children with disabilities whenever the support is needed.

The Friendly Trust, based in and serving Cardiff and Barry, will also help people with disabilities by spending £249,339 on a project to provide advice and practical help in financial matters for disabled people.

Projects that help women feature strongly in the counties of Blaenau Gwent and Neath Port Talbot. The Blaenau Gwent Domestic Abuse Services will spend £132,611 on a project to develop and run group based programmes for women experiencing domestic abuse. Individuals will be able to get together, share experiences and support each other through various programmes.

Based in Cwmafan, Neath Port Talbot, YWCA England & Wales will use their award of £218,579 to carry out a consultation with young women living in Cwmafan. Following the consultation, young women will be supported to organise events, workshops and social events and activities for other young women.

The awards are also helping to revitalise community buildings in Wales. To complete the second phase of the redevelopment and refurbishment of the old school in Bethlehem, Carmarthenshire, Cymdeithas Bethlehem Dyffryn Ceidrych Association Ltd will spend their £103,420 on improving outside surfaces and access and upgrade the facilities available, while Penderyn Community Centre in Rhondda Cynon Taff will use their award of £125,630 to extend and refurbish a small community centre in the village of Penderyn in order to meet increased community demand.

Two projects in North West Wales benefit from nearly £430,000. Based in Bangor and serving Gwynedd & South Anglesey, Cyngor ar Bopeth Gwynedd & De Ynys Mon Citizens Advice Bureau, will spend £10,697 on a capital development grant relating to purchasing and refurbishing an existing building to provide increased capacity and accommodation for volunteers. This will lead to extended and improved access to the group's advice line services. The grant, over one year, will pay for design and specialist fees and expenses.

Based in Holyhead, Peblig, Talysarn and Caernarfon, BTCV will spend nearly £416,600 on a three-year project, which will focus on the integration between different sectors of the community, particularly between young and older members, and to increase the involvement of those experiencing social isolation in community activities. This will be done through supporting and training local communities to be able to identify and develop local community environments in the areas of Ynys Mon, Gwynedd and Conwy, both environmentally and socially.

The 3 G's Development Trust in Merthyr Tydfil will spend £210,000 on a development bid to provide a cinema club for the 5-11year old children based in communities in Merthyr Tydfil. The enhancement on the previous project is the introduction of taster sessions in lifestyle issues, for example, confidence, coping with stress, healthy lifestyles and encourage learning.  They will also enable film shows for senior citizens.

Commenting on the positive impact the awards will have on the communities throughout Wales, Big Lottery Fund Wales Committee Member and Chair of the People and Places Committee, Janet Reed, said:  “Programmes like People and Places are making a difference to the lives of so many people in communities across Wales. People and Places delivers on our promise to use Lottery funding to regenerate and revitalise communities, tackle disadvantage head on and leave a lasting legacy. I’m sure these awards will have a positive impact on the lives of many people in the community and will continue to do so for years to come."

The People and Places programme awards grants of between £5001 and £1 million for a broad range of community projects. For further information about the People and Places programme and how you can apply for funding, please visit www.biglotteryfund.org.uk and use the ‘Wales’ specific search facility.

Further Information

For further information on how to obtain contact details for successful projects or interview, filming and photo opportunities, please contact Oswyn Hughes at the Big Lottery Fund press office in Wales on the numbers below.

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 02920 678 207
Out of hours contact: 07760171431
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 Big Lottery Fund rolls out close to £2 million in Lottery good cause money every 24 hours, which together with other Lottery distributors means that across the UK most people are within a few miles of a Lottery-funded project.
• The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since its inception in June 2004.
• On 1 December 2006 the Big Lottery Fund was officially established by Parliament and at the same time assumed the residual responsibilities of the dissolved National Lottery Charities Board (Community Fund) the New Opportunities Fund, and the Millennium Commission. The 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.

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