London region update
December 2011
Communities Living Sustainably
Big Lottery Fund (BIG) is investing £10million of good cause funding to jump start more sustainable living across the country and communities in London are invited to apply for a slice of the funding.
Spiralling fuel costs and food poverty are just some of the issues to be addressed through BIG’s Communities Living Sustainably programme which aims to inspire people to adapt the way they live, work and engage with each other to reap financial, environmental and health gains.
Alison Rowe, Big Lottery Fund Head of Region for London, said: “Ten communities across England will each gain up to £1m to improve their chances to live sustainably. We want to support people, communities, schools, other local services and employers to come together to understand the simple steps they can take to start making a big change in their locality.
“We want to spark the imagination of local communities to make greener choices and most importantly help vulnerable people to reduce their costs and improve their quality of life. This £10m investment aims to jump start a change in the behaviour of individuals and communities to think and act differently in their daily lives so that sustainable living becomes second nature.”
Communities will be expected to introduce a range of different sustainable activities such as reducing waste, identifying alternative energy sources, accessing and growing local fresh foods or improving energy efficiency for individuals and in community buildings.
Community partnerships are invited to submit an expression of interest by noon, Tuesday 31 January 2012, with 30 areas likely to receive development funding of up to £10,000 to draw up detailed plans. The ten best proposals will then be funded with up to £1 million to deliver ideas for a period of up to five years, with the learning being shared to inform and influence others on how communities can become more sustainable.
Reaching Communities Buildings – changes to eligibility criteria
Following a review of the Reaching Communities programme in November 2011, the following changes have been made to the eligibility criteria of this strand of the programme:
The funding is targeted at buildings or sites based in the most deprived ‘Lower Super Output Areas’(LSOAs) in England, using data from the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD).
We have incorporated the 2010 Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) data (was 2007), and increased the eligible percentage of urban LSOAs to 20% (was 15%).
Therefore, the following LSOAs are eligible to apply:
- the most deprived 20% of LSOA’s categorised as urban
- the most deprived 20% of LSOA’s categorised as rural (town and fringe)
- the most deprived 50% of LSOA’s categorised as rural (village/hamlets/isolated dwellings)
We may also make an exception if your project is based near an eligible area and primarily serves beneficiaries in that area.
Please check the guidance on the new eligibility criteria carefully before applying.
Advice Services Fund
The Government has made up to £16.8 million available for a programme called the Advice Services Fund to support organisations in the free advice sector that have been affected by reductions in public spending.
The programme aims to enable not-for-profit advice organisations to continue providing free services to people in their communities in England.
Grants of £40,000 - £70,000 are available and, to ensure this funding has the greatest impact, priority will be given to organisations that have experienced high levels of cuts and those that haven’t received funding through the Transition Fund. Account will also be taken of how applicants plan to use their grants, their plans for the future, including ways to improve efficiency, and how the quality of their advice services helps meet local needs.
The Big Lottery Fund is delivering this programme on behalf of the Office for Civil Society.
Closing date for applications is noon on 22 December 2011.
Cardboard Citizens
It was curtain up at the Brady Arts Centre in Aldgate for the opening performance of Life Ain’t No Musical, a theatre performance put together by young people, all with experience of homelessness.
The ACT NOW theatre project run by charity Cardboard Citizens and funded with a BIG grant of £464,000, uses theatre to help young people to move out of homelessness and make positive changes in their lives, from securing a qualification to joining a training course or getting into volunteering or employment.
Over the past two years, the project has reached 336 homeless young people through the theatre workshops and over 35% have gone on to gain a range of qualifications, work placements or employment. Many more have successfully been re-engaged with support services, from mental health to housing.
In just five weeks the group of twelve who had never met before put their thoughts and feelings into words and song to tell their story of life on the streets. Leaving often difficult and chaotic circumstances behind them, the group put on a show worthy of a West End run with talent shining throughout the performance.
The theatre erupts in cheers and the actors run off stage returning time after time to take several bows. One of the stars of the show, Aziz, sums up his feelings. “This project has taken us out of our comfort zones and it is a really good experience. It’s given me a reason to get up in the morning and I hope to go to the national youth theatre and then on to University to study drama.”
View our audio slideshow of the performance
Your Square Mile
Ever wanted to do something to clean up your neighbourhood but didn’t know where to start? Now you can with Your Square Mile – a BIG-funded organisation dedicated to helping people improve their local area.
Individuals, charities, local businesses and community groups are invited to join Your Square Mile, a citizens' movement that is changing the way local people support each other to improve their communities.
Your Square Mile launched as a mutual in October 2011 and is already helping thousands of community groups make an impact in their local area. The mutual and its website offers a toolkit to help people both give more and receive more from their local community and new benefits are being added all the time.
So don't go it alone, join up today and be part of the Mile movement.
Christmas Crackers
London projects are leading the way when it comes to picking up awards for their work.
The last month has seen four BIG funded London groups achieve recognition for making a difference in their communities.
First up, Living Under One Sun. The north London group works tirelessly to enable local people from the built up Tottenham area to get back to nature and enjoy fresh fruit and veg courtesy of their fantastic allotment project. Environment charity BTCV clearly thought so too, awarding them Community Group of the Year at their national Green Heroes awards. Watch the winners tell their story.
Castlehaven Community Association forms a vital part of life in Camden for people of all ages and the group are celebrating an award for this very reason. They were winners in the centre for all ages category in the first Awards for All Ages, which recognise the achievements of projects that are trying to bring different generations together.
BIG funded Shape and The Royal College of Physicians (RCP), have just won a prestigious award for helping to build a more inclusive world for disabled people, with their ‘challenging’ exhibition of RCP portraits Re-framing disability: portraits from the Royal College of Physicians.
The Ability Media International (AMI) award was presented at a glittering ceremony at the London Studios. The packed event was attended by some of the UK Arts industry’s most influential and well respected players – including Downton Abbey actor Dame Maggie Smith and filmmaker Mike Leigh.
The AMI awards, created by Leonard Cheshire Disability in 2009, identify outstanding creative projects that encourage a more inclusive world for disabled people.
Finally, womens' organisation, the Joint Association Nissa Trust (JAN Trust), won the Community Achievement Award 2011 from the Co-operative Group.The prestigious awards ceremony took place in Central London on 12th November 2011 and celebrated individuals, community groups, and projects that have made local neighbourhoods a brighter place to live and work in 2011.
A BIG congratulations to all four groups for their hard work and commitment to making London a better place to live, we are very proud of you!
BIG champions better play for kids in England
Children across England want more diverse play opportunities according to a survey commissioned by the Big Lottery Fund (BIG).
The results show that while computer games are predictably high on children’s fun agenda, with close to 90 per cent regularly playing, more than one third of respondents said that they would like to try other activities with den and tree house building, martial arts and making things with wood or other materials coming top of their wish list.
An opinion poll, conducted to coincide with today’s launch of the evaluation report of BIG’s Children’s Play programme, asked children of between 7 and 15 years old about the types of play that they currently do and would like to do more of.
The poll results support the findings of the three year independent evaluation of BIG’s Children’s Play programme. The programme committed £123million since 2006 to widen children’s access to good quality play across England. During the lifetime of the programme 351 grants went to local authorities in England for play portfolios covering 1,466 individual play projects.
One of the cornerstones of BIG’s Children’s Play programme was the promotion of a “free play” concept – free of charge, free to come and go and free to choose, as opposed to more structured activities.
In particular that involved giving children the freedom to take more risks without coming to serious harm. The activities, championed by the programme, included challenges not normally offered to children such as den building, fire play and climbing trees.
BIG advice line 0845 4 10 20 30
