Young people in Wales are BIG winners with £2 million regeneration funding

Area:

Wales

Programme:

People and Places

Release date:

10 8 2007

Twelve community projects are benefiting from the £2,156,321 cash roll out, which aims to bring people together to make communities stronger and to improve rural and urban environments.

Projects that support youngsters are receiving almost half the money awarded and grants totalling nearly £500,000 alone will benefit young people in North Wales. With a grant of £244,127, Liverpool Personal Service Society in Denbighshire will run a project to provide a toy library, helping children to improve their skills and providing volunteering opportunities for parents and carers. This is a development of an existing project to introduce new geographical areas and a programme to encourage exercise, provide holiday provision and extend the age range to include 6-11 year olds.

Also in Denbighshire, the Prestatyn and Meliden Action Group will spend £246,486 on a project to extend the opening hours and services of the pop-in centre in Prestatyn. The project, for young people aged 10 – 25, will offer a new youth cafe, computer suite, independent living facilities and arts activities.

Young people living in South Wales will also reap the benefits and nearly £100,000 will enable Bridges Community Centre in Monmouth to employ a centre development officer so the centre can open in the evenings, holidays and weekends. As a result, activities will be extended including volunteer training and personal development. The project will widen the centre's activities for the family unit, young people and people who are alone at weekends.

Youngsters in Neath Port Talbot will be getting active thanks to awards totalling nearly £180,000. One grant of £100,966 to New Sandfields and Aberavon Sustainable Regeneration in Aberavon will enable the group to work in partnership with Neath-Port Talbot (NPT) Neighbourhood Renewal Area to create a Multi-Use Gaming Area (MUGA) on a derelict piece of land within a housing estate in Aberavon. The project will ensure that children and young people will have the opportunity to take part in sporting and recreational activities. The MUGA will be part of a larger project to rejuvenate a disused piece of greenland, a youth shelter and a community garden designed for the more marginalised young people and residents of Aberavon.

An award of £76,564 will allow Ynysdawley Playing Fields Association in Seven Sisters to create a teenage play facility incorporating a 'Team Shelter' for children aged between 8-16. The multi system will provide activities such as climbing, balancing and team building.  In addition to this, the project plans to construct an all weather kick about area, consisting of a three metre high end fence with built in goal posts, basketball net and a tarmac area marked out for various other sports.  It will be possible to use the facility all year round.

Further west in Pembrokeshire, two projects will aim to develop the skills of youngsters. The Fishguard & Goodwick Young Persons Trust Limited in Fishguard will spend £224,110 on a project to provide a new programme of structured adult interaction with the organisation's beneficiaries. A youth council will be set up to decide on the activities.

It’s not just young people that benefit from today’s funding. Pembrokeshire Voluntary Transport will spend £249,605 on developing a new model for community transport in Pembrokeshire. Part of the grant will pay for the purchase of 2 minibuses and the salary of a Community Transport Link Worker.  

In the South Wales Valleys, Cynon Taf Housing Association in Rhondda Cynon Taff will spend £209,941 to develop a Time Bank pilot scheme employing a Coordinator and providing a budget for rewards and activities.

In Swansea, Mumbles Methodist Church aims to spend their award of £69,950 to deliver a programme of family learning sessions at community halls in Mumbles, Penlan and Brynhyfryd in Swansea. The aim of the project is to help and encourage different family members to work closely together, in a relaxed and enjoyable community setting.

Older people also benefit under the awards. Serving the whole of Swansea, Family Housing Association (Wales) Ltd will spend £151,658 on a project to furnish and equip a number of spaces in a housing development for older people living in Sketty Park, Swansea. The spaces will include a community hall, health and fitness suite, IT suite and library, resource and meeting room, craft and hobbies suite and a greenhouse. The spaces will be made available to both tenants of the housing development and older people from the local community and will provide significant opportunities for leisure, social and community activities, which will lead to reduced isolation, increased community involvement, utilising local skills and improved well being.

Projects which aim to support the wellbeing of women also feature in the awards. Based in Mold, delivered across Flintshire in a variety of locations, the KIM Project Ltd will use their award of £245,256 for a project that will provide group work and move-on opportunities focusing on mental and physical health and well-being to women in Flintshire who are experiencing common mental health concerns and severe and enduring mental illness. Beneficiaries will have increased self awareness, self esteem, self confidence, skills, health and life opportunities and awareness of recovery and of relapse prevention strategies.

Covering the whole of Wales, Welsh Women’s Aid offers a freephone, bi-lingual telephone service to anyone experiencing domestic abuse or a concerned other. A grant of £223, 810 from BIG will maintain and promote the Wales Domestic Abuse Helpline service  24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

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 £66 million 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

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.
• 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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