- Area:
- Wales
- Programme:
- Young People's Fund Make it Happen
- Release date:
- 12 2 2008
Youngsters in Wales will have a golden opportunity to emulate Welsh Boxing hero, Joe Calzaghe, and young farmers will be swapping their wellies for a pair of skis this summer, thanks to a cash injection of nearly £17,000 from the Big Lottery Fund.
Four projects, developed by young people themselves, share in a total of £16,747 awarded through the Make it Happen strand of BIG’s Young People’s Fund. Make it Happen helps Welsh young people make positive changes to their lives.
Through boxing, youngsters in Newport will have an opportunity to fight for better futures while learning about health, fitness, nutrition and well-being, thanks to the £3,252 awarded to the Duffryn Community Link organisation. Based in the Tredegar Park ward of Newport, the group will set up a Friday night project to combat anti-social behaviour on the Duffryn housing estate. A share of the money will be spent on new boxing equipment and boxing sessions for males between 16 and 25 years old. The project is working in partnership with Newport Positive Futures, local Police and the Duffryn Community Sport Centre. Held over nine weeks, the initiative includes workshops on drug, alcohol and steroid misuse, as well as basketball, football and tag rugby sessions.
Highlighting the impact this award will have on the community, Lucy Powell, the Sports Development Officer, based on the Duffryn estate, said: “The young people themselves came up with the idea. We hope to start a boxing club for youngsters who are disaffected and disengaged on the estate, while teaching them about health and nutrition. Duffryn has pockets of anti social behaviour problems but the lottery funding will provide many youngsters with opportunities they otherwise wouldn’t be able to enjoy. We only have a limited budget to work with, so the Make it Happen Awards have been a tremendous boost for the young people in the area.”
Youngsters in Anglesey, who live in one of the most deprived wards in Wales, will now have somewhere to spend their evenings, thanks to an award of £5,000 to the London Road Community Centre in Holyhead. The former chapel was refurbished and transformed into a vibrant community centre back in November 2006, and the facility now boasts a state of the art fitness room, music room, I.T. suite and a café. The project will spend their money on providing a youth drop-in facility, which will be open to youngsters three nights a week. The money is part of a £12,000 project to keep youngsters off the streets, occupied and to provide them with opportunities to learn IT and cookery skills, learn about fitness and nutrition or even how to play the guitar, drums or piano.
Delighted with the grant, Project Manager, Lee Dixon, said: “There is a lack of facilities in the ward and we hope this project will stop youngsters from hanging around in the street and in bus shelters. Local people in the community will then feel safer walking the streets at night. The youngsters will be allowed to eat the food they cook and they will even have the option of burning off the calories in our gym. The centre has been built for the community and we can now achieve the potential of this wonderful resource, with the young and old socialising together under one roof. We would have had to do a lot of fundraising work to raise the money ourselves, but the Make it Happen programme was a one-stop shop, which gave us everything we needed.”
Farmers in Llandovery, Carmarthenshire, will be swapping their wellies for a pair of skis this summer. Thanks to an award of £3,500, the Llandovery Young Farmers Club will run a project to provide a series of workshops and new experiences for more than 50 of its young members. The group, aged 12-18 years old, will be taking a trip up to the Birmingham Snowdome over the summer holidays for skiing lessons. They will also be hiring a local community centre for singing and dancing lessons.
With the £4,995 they received, the Carmarthen Youth Project will provide access to services, opportunities and activities for young people with additional needs. Through a ‘buddy’ system, the project will enable up to 15 youngsters with additional needs to access the club and enjoy the wide range of activities on offer.
Raring to get the project going, Gayle Harris, a Project Manager with the Carmarthen Youth Project, said: “We want to treble the members we have here already and give young people a voice in the community. This could open doors to a wide range of opportunities for youngsters in the future.”
Highlighting the importance of the Make it Happen programme, the Big Lottery Fund Wales Committee member and Chair of the Young People’s Fund Committee, Mike Theodoulou, said: “These projects will provide youngsters with an opportunity to learn valuable new lessons, be creative, develop new and exciting skills and express themselves in a safe environment. This is a prime example of how small amounts of money can make a big difference, by helping groups to develop a range of skills and take part in a variety of activities.”
For further information about the Big Lottery Fund and how your group can apply for funding, log onto the Big Lottery Fund website www.biglotteryfund.org.uk and use the ‘Wales’ specific search facility. Alternatively, you can telephone the Big Lottery Fund office on 01686 611 700.
Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 02920 678 207
Out of hours contact: 07760 171 431
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102 030
Textphone: 0845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk.
Notes to Editors:
In Wales, the Big Lottery Fund is rolling out close to £1 million a week in Lottery good cause money, which together with other Lottery distributors means that across Wales 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. It was 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 £20 billion has now been raised and more than 280,000 grants given out across the arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.
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