Voluntary and community sector awarded £1m Lottery grants

Voluntary and community sector groups dealing with subjects as far ranging as substance abuse and learning disabilities have today been awarded grants from the Big Lottery Fund worth more than £1 million.

In all 15 projects across Northern Ireland will share in a £1,102,264 grants roll-out from the National Lottery Good Cause Distributor under its Voluntary and Community Sector programme.

Commenting on the awards, Breidge Gadd, Big Lottery Fund NI Board Member said: “We are proud to be able to support these organisations in their vital work in Northern Ireland. The Big Lottery Fund delivers grants that make a difference to the most disadvantaged in our society. These awards are an example of just how important lottery funding is to local people.”

One of those groups to be awarded funding is Mulholland Aftercare Services which has secured a grant of £127,471 to extend an innovative mentoring scheme to vulnerable young people who have suffered abuse, are in care or homeless.

Mentor Support Worker Suzanne Melville said: “We offer this programme to 16 to 25 year olds who have been in contact with social services, who have been living in care or who have been in hospital.

“We team trained mentors with a young person to develop a relationship over a year to enable them to set some goals and reach some independence. The biggest issues facing these young people are isolation, loneliness and low self-esteem and this scheme is helping them develop the confidence to do those things that other people take for granted like going on a shopping trip by themselves or going to the cinema.

“This grant from the Big Lottery Fund will allow us to take the scheme further.”

Big Lottery Fund is the joint operating name of the New Opportunities Fund and the National Lottery Charities Board.

To date, the two merged Funds have committed more than £5 billion to initiatives with national, regional and local partners from the public, voluntary, charity and private sectors, with a particular focus on disadvantage.

(MB)/SP