Local Projects Shortlisted For National Lottery Awards

As the National Lottery celebrates a quarter of a century since it began making millionaires in the UK, five Northern Ireland based projects have been shortlisted for recognition in its annual awards.

The scheme celebrates ordinary people doing extraordinary things in a search for the nation's favourite lottery funded projects.

The five fantastic local projects in with a chance of winning are hoping to secure enough votes to take the top spot in their respective categories.

If successful, their own dreams may come true with a £10,000 cash prize, an iconic National Lottery Awards trophy and a night of glamour at a ceremony to be broadcast on BBC One in November.

It comes after they were each shortlisted over more than 700 other applicants to make their way to the all-important public voting stage.

Vying for success are:

• L'Derry's Brooke Park- a historic and well-known public space in the heart of Northern Ireland's second city, often dubbed 'The People's Park'. It reopened in 2017 after a multi-million pound regeneration project, including a £1.5m contribution from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

• Ulster GAA's Wheelchair Hurling club- facilitated through a grant, this allowed Ireland's largest sporting organisation to expand its Gaelic games to suit people with disabilities. The four-year project saw an Ulster provincial team established to compete at All-Ireland level, and the club promote awareness of the game in schools and local communities.

• Kinship Care- founded in 2010 by a local mother-of-one, Kinship Care NI supports services in L'Derry with a volunteer team strengthened by the National Lottery. Their work means that more children affected by domestic violence situations, mental health issues, imprisonment of a parent or drug and alcohol issues, still get to grow up among family.

• Newry's Imaginarium Arts and Story Centre- A fully accessible magical world like no other lies in Newry, waiting to fulfil the wishes of young children. As they hide in secret tunnels, visit the village in the forest, dress up as a pirate or a dinosaur or make a wish in the well, the only limit is their imagination. Launched in 2018, National Lottery funding was integral to getting it off the ground with an exciting phase two planned for later this year.

• The Mourne Mountains Landscape Partnership Scheme- This initiative allowed the magical County Down landscape to be conserved and enhanced for generations to come. Running from 2013 to 2017, it stimulated diverse activity from restoring summit towers on the iconic Mourne Wall - that wends its gravity-defying way over the highest peaks - to improving access with path construction and protecting habitats through heathland restoration.

Visit the National Lottery website to vote online.



(JG/CM)