The Big Lottery Fund is giving £240,000 to charity projects in Brighton and Hove, it said today (Tuesday 11 August).
The money will pay for gig buddies for people with learning disabilities, surfing courses for young people with mental health issues, a reading scheme using comics and IT training for jobless people.
The biggest award went to Stay Up Late which will receive £202,000 for its Gig Buddies project from the Big Lottery Fund Reaching Communities programme.
The Big Lottery Fund said: “This project in Brighton will use its funding to provide a buddying service for people with learning disabilities to help reduce social isolation and increase involvement in the wider community.
“The project will recruit and train additional volunteers through a wide range of networks to expand its buddying service.
“Buddies will be matched with individual beneficiaries and will support them to participate in a range of social activities such as attending gigs, meeting friends or going on a day trip.”
The Wave Project Brighton has been given £9,342 by the Big Lottery Fund Awards for All programme.
The Big Lottery Fund said: “The organisation will use the funding to provide six weeks of surfing courses for children and young people aged 8 to 21 years old at risk of social exclusion or with mental health issues.
“This will provide positive and intervention activities to help improve the mental and emotional health of beneficiaries.”
Upside Comics, from Brighton, has been given £9,954 by the Big Lottery Fund Awards for All programme for a scheme using comics to help refugee children to improve their reading and writing.
The project was awarded a similar sum just over four years ago.
The Big Lottery Fund said: “The organisation will use the funding to deliver literacy workshops for children and hold an exhibition of their work.
“This will use the analysis of popular comics, manga and graphic novels to improve the literacy skills of children specifically those from refugee families and boys who are at risk of exclusion.”
Centre Church, which meets at St Mary’s Church Hall, in St James’s Street, Brighton, has been given £9,830 for its CAP Job Club and IT Training programme from the Big Lottery Fund Awards for All programme.
The Big Lottery Fund said: “The organisation will use the funding to set up an IT suite within their local church facility to provide a job club and IT course for people who are unemployed with little IT and employment skills.
“This will provide an IT suite and job club for local people in areas of high unemployment and provide them with CV writing, interviewing techniques, IT and employment skills support.”
The Brunswick Town Charitable Trust has been given £9,967 by the Big Lottery Fund Awards for All programme.
The Big Lottery Fund said: “The organisation will use the funding to purchase additional IT equipment, craft and training resources to increase the group’s capacity to deliver training and support.
“This will enable the group to accommodate increasing requests from community groups and individuals, as well as provide a wider range of training activities and an improved management infrastructure so that activities can be delivered more efficiently and better serve the local community.”
