Lottery Christmas Gift For West Midlands Women, Youth and Community Groups.

Among the organisations receiving grants from the lottery good cause fund today are: Wolverhampton-based Inspire Black Country; Dudley Council for Voluntary Service; Walsall Motor Access Project and Small Heath Baptist Church, Birmingham.

John Taylor, Big Lottery Fund Head of West Midlands Region, said: “These grants will make this Christmas even more special for our communities. The grants the Big Lottery Fund is announcing today range across the whole spectrum of charitable and community activity — which goes to show there really is something in the lottery good causes for everyone. The £6.7 million being invested today in the West Midlands region will bring real improvements to communities and particularly to those most in need.”

A grant of £165,894 goes to Inspire Black Country, formerly the Black Country Women’s Development Network, to establish the organisation in its new form and to raise the profile of women’s issues in Dudley. The grant will fund a new post of director as well as administration and development staff.

“We are really thrilled to get this funding,” said Inspire Black Country secretary Angie Bradley-Davies. “Without it the future would have been dim. We want to put women’s issues back on the agenda. So many voluntary organisations don’t see women as part of the marginalised community. We want to support women, to give them confidence to go out and get their voices heard on issues that really affect them, like economic inequality, inequality in decision making, domestic violence and childcare.”

Dudley Council for Voluntary Service has been awarded £223,348 for a project to develop small, newly emerging voluntary sector organisations in Dudley. The grant will also fund development of a comprehensive information service to improve information sharing between voluntary sector organisations.

“The Big Lottery Fund grant is wonderful news for us,” said Dudley Council for Voluntary Service senior development officer Caroline Webb. “It will allow us to employ a proactive small groups development officer and an information manager. The development officer will help new groups get started and expand, with advice on such things as a constitution, funding and a business plan. Early advice is extremely beneficial as it means that they can deliver a good service at an early stage.

“The information officer will help to keep everyone up to date with the whole raft of government and other information that affects the voluntary sector, and we can keep people informed in a way they can understand.”

The Walsall Motor Access Project receives £86,850 to continue and expand its workshop- based training programmes for young offenders, young people at risk of offending and children not in school. It teaches them the fundamentals of repairing and renovating cars, motorbikes and off-road vehicles, which they can learn to drive. The aim is to provide a structured environment and training to boost confidence and to help them into education or employment.

“This grant will have a positive impact on our work by giving more opportunities for young people,” said Walsall Motor Access Project lead officer, Robert Plant. “We work with challenging youngsters, but we get them taking the vehicles apart and understanding how they work, and they become really engaged in the activity. In the workshop they learn that they have to conform to rules and norms and not act in an irresponsible way. We are now also working with cycles. We teach the young people how to maintain them, and can even introduce the importance of exercise and healthy eating.”

Community facilities based at Birmingham’s Small Heath Baptist Church have been awarded £206,500 towards the cost of a major refurbishment.

“News of this grant is absolutely brilliant,” said Jackie Price, project coordinator. “We didn’t think it would happen. It has been a lot of hard work, but when the refurbishment is finished the community will have a state-of-the-art building with a better use of space that will allow more activities to take place, and with modern facilities tailored to the needs of user groups. The church is 120 years old, and is heavily used by groups from all sectors of our culturally mixed community. It has not been refurbished for some 30 years and is looking old and tired. The new facilities should help further the integration of people from different cultural backgrounds within the community.”

A full list of your region’s grants is at: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/newsroom/vcs.htm

Big Lottery Fund
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102030 Textphone: 845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk