Tag: LifeCare

Local projects hit the Lottery jackpot

Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre, Granton Youth and LifeCare are among today’s big winners

Over £11 million of National Lottery funding will help to keep vital local facilities and services running across Scotland, as 299 community projects today (Tuesday 1 November) share in share in grants from The National Lottery Community Fund.

The funding, made possible by National Lottery players, means that many community and voluntary sector groups will be able to continue their support to individuals, families and communities who have been disproportionately affected by increased cost-of-living pressures. 

Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre is one of the recipients announced today. Drylaw Community Association, the voluntary organisation that oversees the centre, has been awarded £94,000.

The windfall is welcome news for the cash-strapped organisation, which earlier this year was facing closure due to a funding crisis.

This grant will fund a variety of community activities within Drylaw which community members can engage with. This project will support 1650 community members and provide 150 volunteering opportunities for the local community over two years.

Granton Youth, currently based at Royston Wardieburn Community Centre, has been awarded nearly £128,000. The group will use the funding to work with 60 young parents and parents of teenagers within the North West of Edinburgh.

This project will also provide fifteen volunteer opportunities through the work of the
project. A range of support will be provided to parents and families which will consist of one to one support, group work sessions/workshops, counselling and family mediation.

Another youth organisation celebrating today is The Junction, who receive almost £150,000.

The Leith group will use the funding to provide a counselling service for young people aged 12 to 21 years, reaching 250 young people, supported by 30 volunteers.

There’s welcome news for North Edinburgh’s older people, too. LifeCare has been awarded over £180,000.

The Stockbridge-based organisation celebrated it’s 80th birthday last year and will continue providing support to isolated older people within Edinburgh by matching people over 60 years (known as VIPs) to volunteers with shared interests, creating friendships and improving wellbeing.

Group activities at LifeCare include a choir group ‘ Vocal Vibes, a Film Group, a Sewing Bee, and Bingo.

Over three years the project will support 420 older people and 450 volunteers.

Lothian Centre for Inclusive Living (LCiL) was established in 1991 to help disabled people to live independently and take control of their lives.

For over 30 years the organisation has provided independent advice, advocacy and support to disabled people and an award of £131,306 means this service will continue for another three years.

Callum Odgen, Disability Information Services Co-ordinator, LCiL, said:” This funding will allow us to build on our successful services and do more to support disabled people, people with long-term conditions and older people to live independently, access essential services and maximise their income through comprehensive advice and support.

“With the cost-of-living crisis adding to the existing social and financial impact of COVID-19 felt by people across Scotland, this award will help ensure that we continue to be at the forefront of providing support to those who need it in Edinburgh and the Lothians.”

Other big winners are The Welcoming Association (£140,000), Grassmarket Community Project (£80,000) and ACE IT (£198,000), while other local projects to receive small grants include Friends of Granton Castle Walled Garden, who receive £9999, Citadel Arts Group (£6600) and bereavement charity Held in our Hearts, who receive £4126.

Announcing the funding, Kate Still, Scotland Chair, The National Lottery Community Fund said: “This latest round of funding is one of the ways we are directing our National Lottery funding to support people and communities facing difficult circumstances.

“Our message to community groups across Scotland is that we are here for you and our role, as a funder, is to continue to listen and to be flexible and responsive to the challenges and pressures you are facing.

“It’s all thanks to National Lottery players that we are able to help give charities and community groups throughout Scotland greater certainty during this critical time.”

The National Lottery Community Fund distributes funding on behalf of National Lottery players who raise more than £30 million each week for good causes throughout the UK. 

To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk 

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Val McDermid opens CafeLife

Val McDermid has officially reopened the revamped CafeLife community cafe on Cheyne Street.  Dubbed the Queen of Crime, the author has sold over 17 million books to date across the globe and is translated into more than 40 languages. Val met with café customers and fans to sign copies of her books brought along on the day.   

CafeLife is run by renowned local charity LifeCare Edinburgh and all proceeds from café sales go towards the organisation’s vital care services for older people living across Edinburgh. 

Val said: “Every community should have a resource like CafeLife. We’re lucky to have it. The LifeCare centre, and all the vital services provided by the charity, help support serious issues such as isolation and loneliness.

“I’m proud to be supporting LifeCare in its important work.” 

The pandemic forced the café to close its doors to its loyal sit-in customers in March 2020.  The closure was a real loss to the area as CafeLife is the only fully-accessible community café around, offering good value food and drink appealing to all generations and with lots of space for buggies and wheelchairs.  

Opened nearly ten years ago, the team took the opportunity to upgrade the café through the covid-closure. The charity secured emergency funding to revamp CafeLife’s interiors and the kitchen team have spent time creating a new and improved menu to appeal to all tastes and dietary needs.  

CaféLife will be running a series of promotions throughout the coming months to celebrate the reopening and to welcome everyone back.  

For more information about LifeCare visit https://www.lifecare-edinburgh.org.uk/  

And for Val McDermid visit https://www.valmcdermid.com/ 

Stockbridge in the spotlight

LifeCare’s monthly History Talk is about ‘Stockbridge through the archives of Historic Environment Scotland’ @HistEnvScot by Jackie Sangster.

On Tues 22nd Feb at 15:00 – 16:15 on Zoom.

If you would like to attend please contact us at alekspacula@lifecare-edinburgh.org.uk for the code.

£97,000 Lottery LIFT for Muirhouse Millennium Centre

Muirhouse Millennium Centre is among twenty-seven community groups across Edinburgh are sharing in a £717,108 cash boost from The National Lottery Community Fund today.  

The Millennium Centre receives £97,000 to ‘provide a range of community activities within Muirhouse Millennium Centre engaging approximately 150 local community members and four volunteers.’

Muirhouse Millennium Centre is also the base of LIFT (Low Income Families Together), who run a range of services from the Millennium Centre.

Thanks to an award of £53,463, Leith-based Fast Forward (Positive Lifestyles) Ltd will be able to continue their ‘Ask Dad’ project – a health education and training programme for dads and male carers across Edinburgh and the Lothians -for another three years.

Mark Hunter, Project Officer, Ask Dad, said: “Thanks to this support from The National Lottery Community Fund our ‘Ask Dad’ programme will be able to continue to support dads whose families are going through a period of difficulty. 

“We’re looking forward to developing our work to date, including our Good Conversations programme, supporting parents to have what they perceive as awkward, difficult, or embarrassing conversations with their children.

“We are looking forward to working on our new programme, ‘Dad: The Invisible Parent’ which will support better awareness and understanding by practitioners of the challenges faced by dads, to improve their engagement and communication with dads, towards better outcomes for their children. 

“In addition, by working with parents who feel ignored or unwelcome by service providers, we aim to improve their ability to communicate with services and to understand a service provider’s role and their limitations.” 

Better informed, more confident dads improve the wellbeing of the whole family. They also improve their children’s educational attainment. These impacts are even more profound in the communities affected by poverty and inequality.

An award of £114,344 means that Craigmillar Literacy Trust will continue to provide their support to local families with babies and children up to nine years of age for the next three years.

They will also be able to run their new ‘Express Yourself’ programme for older children and young people aged up to the age of sixteen using digital media and performance to support them to connect with literacy in a way that is more relevant to them.

Kara Whelan, Project Manager, Craigmillar Literacy Trust, said: “This grant will support our work with babies, children, young people, and families in Craigmillar though our early literacy, family literacy and young people’s projects. 

“Our work is relationship based and embedded in our community. We are looking forward to building on the strengths we have and to developing new and innovating approaches to supporting literacy in our community.”

Edinburgh Tool Library receives £9,500 to help with the costs of a Volunteer Co-ordinator who will deliver a bespoke training programme for volunteers as well as making links with other third sector organisations in Edinburgh and will help the group engage with new communities and neighbourhoods across the city.

Chris Hellawell, Founder and Director, Edinburgh Tool Library, said: “This support will allow us to reach communities that we haven’t yet spoken to before, help us enhance the support we give to our community and to produce materials to share with other organisations like ours across Scotland so we can amplify the impart of all the hard work or our volunteers in Edinburgh.  Thank you so much.”

More Edinburgh projects celebrating today include Ama-zing Harmonies, Big Hearts Community Trust, Leith Community Centre, LifeCare and St Columba’s Hospice.

Across Scotland 179 projects are sharing in £5,752,948 today. Announcing the funding, The National Lottery Community Fund’s Scotland Chair, Kate Still, said: “Local community groups bring people together to support one another through difficult times.

“Sometimes this is as simple as providing a listening ear and other times it can be a real lifeline connecting people who might otherwise be lonely and isolated. Each of the projects receiving funding today in Edinburgh remind us of the power of social connections and the difference that community projects can make to people’s lives.

 “National Lottery players can be proud to know that the money they raise is helping to support this vital work.” 

 The National Lottery Community Fund distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and more than £30 million a week is raised for good causes across the UK.

Thanks to National Lottery players, last year we awarded over half a billion pounds (£588.2 million) of life-changing funding to communities across the UK. Over eight in ten (83%) of our grants are for under £10,000 – going to grassroots groups and charities across the UK that are bringing to life amazing ideas that matter to their communities. 

Great Scott! LifeCare’s monthly history talk

LifeCare, the older person’s charity based in Stockbridge, is pleased to announce October’s installment of its very popular monthly History Talks which cover local history and are delivered by local people and organisations.

In the year that we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott, October’s topic is “The Building of the Scott Monument”.

This talk will be delivered by Jackie Sangster, Learning Manager at Historic Environment Scotland and it will take place online using Zoom on Tuesday 26th October from 15.00 till 16.00.

Spaces are limited so to reserve a place please contact LifeCare’s Community Engagement Facilitator, Aleks Pacula alekspacula@lifecare-edinburgh.org.uk or call LifeCare on 0131 343 0940

LifeCare Edinburgh receives support from Arnold Clark

LifeCare Edinburgh has received £1,000 from Arnold Clark’s Community Fund to help the charity deliver its essential care to hundreds of older people living across the North of the city. 

The renowned local charity offers registered care, outreach activities and help at home services for older people. Established in 1941, the organisation supports elderly clients suffering with dementia, mobility issues, those experiencing isolation and loneliness, food poverty, mental health problems and offers dedicated support for carers.  

LifeCare’s vital services have not stopped through the pandemic. Since March 2020, the charity has supported over 770 elderly individuals with vital positive support designed to protect and maintain the physical and mental health needs of some of the most isolated older members of the community. 

The committed team has worked tirelessly to safely deliver essential care, practical help and companionship activities to ensure older people received the support they needed to stay well.  The charity also launched several important new initiatives, such as their hugely successful meals on wheels service, specifically designed to help support the most isolated and vulnerable.  

Margaret Stewart, Care Service Manager at LifeCare said: “Throughout LifeCare, we have worked tirelessly to ensure no client in need went without our dedicated support and contact. 

“We have delivered over 7,500 hours of registered care through the crisis to date, over 10,000 hours of help within the home, made over 4,300 calls to carers most in need and served up over 10,000 hot nutritious meals to doorsteps. 

“We simply could not deliver this vital care without the generous support from our funders.  A huge thank you to Arnold Clark for this recent award which will help us to continue to care for those who need our help.”

Chief Executive and Group Managing Director Eddie Hawthorne said: “The Arnold Clark Community Fund is here to connect us with our local communities, and we’re delighted that we’ve been able to help LifeCare with this grant.

“The past year has been challenging for so many of us, which is why it’s important that organisations like LifeCare, who work so hard improve the lives of others, continue to get the support they need.

“We hope this grant will make a difference and help them continue to provide essential care to the elderly living in Edinburgh.”

For more information visit https://www.lifecare-edinburgh.org.uk/