A new year is starting to mean one thing at Grapevine – news of more money coming our way to reduce loneliness in Coventry and increase the resilience of local people and communities!
This time the grant is from Act for Change fund – a £3.6 million partnership between Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, for organisations supporting young people working for change.
The partnership works jointly with the National Lottery Community Fund and is matched by the #iwill fund – a further joint investment programme with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
One of 24 organisations across the UK to receive this second round of grants totalling £2.1 million, our £95,500 share over two years goes directly into adding more capacity to our Coventry Youth Activists (CYA) campaigns group through the appointment of a full-time organiser.
This role takes challenging social injustice to a whole new level – helping the young people involved to grow, organise, lead and sustain positive social action against inequality. The result? Fewer young people, with and without disabilities, who feel lonely and isolated but unable to voice these feelings in the city and do something to change them.
#CYASaturdays has already tackled the statistic that one in three young disabled people spend less than an hour outside of home enjoying their weekend as others might.
There’s been an ideas factory, a live inclusive gig, campaigning at the Godiva Festival, starting a blog and a city centre performance involving a sofa on wheels (all CYA news can be found here). What’s next? Thanks to this funding, the sky’s the limit but the decisions on how to get there are all in the hands of our young people. Watch this space!
Click here for full details of today’s announcement on the Paul Hamlyn Foundation website.
Follow @covactivists on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to join and support their journey.
Further information
- Act for Change fund is a joint initiative between Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, working in partnership with the National Lottery Community Fund. Both foundations are acting as match funders and are awarding grants on behalf of the #iwill Fund.
- The #iwill Fund is made possible thanks to a £40 million joint investment from the National Lottery Fund and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to support young people to access high quality social action opportunities. For more information, visit www.iwill.org.uk.