£1.5m National Lottery support for community projects across Scotland

Published: 05 Mar 2019

Over £1.5million funding from National Lottery Awards for All Scotland has gone to 204 community, sports and arts projects across the country, supporting a wide range of creative initiatives.

Cutting Edge Theatre receive funding towards a stage production created by their Fife INSPIRE groups. The award will help them to stage their first full production onstage, bringing in professionals to work with the group and mentoring one of the young adults to be the Assistant Director. The group will be creating the story themselves and will be part of the creative process.

INSPIRE are groups currently running in Fife and Edinburgh that use drama techniques to help people of all ages to build confidence, self-esteem and improve communication skills.

Suzanne Lofthus, Artistic Director, told us: "By winning this award, it will allow the Fife group to develop their skills and expand their creative horizons. One of the participants, Abbie Wallace has already toured professionally with Cutting Edge Theatre in "Downs with Love" and this award will open up other opportunities for other participants."

Arts Inc. Community Interest Company use a variety of artistic techniques to engage individuals and groups in creative activities designed to positively contribute to participant’s health and wellbeing. Funding will support Roon The Toon - a project working with groups of older adults with Dementia - to be rolled out in Dumfries and Galloway.

Director James Galloway explains: "We believe creativity provides a unique platform which provides a range of physical and mental stimuli to all who choose to engage.

"For Roon The Toon we use ‘soft’ creative techniques to produce a visual record of places of historical interest in the participant’s town. These images are gathered and form the board, a main part of the game. The finished game provides a legacy of the project, an educational and fun activity about the town where participants live and designed, by the residents themselves.

"This funding will allow Arts Inc. and our partner organisations to engage a larger number of older adults with Dementia in creative activities providing a supportive, worthwhile, interesting and stimulating series of workshops for the benefit of all who choose to participate."

The full list of awards supported by Creative Scotland in this latest round of National Lottery Awards For All include:

• Cowal Brass (Argyll and Bute) - £7,500 to host brass band music workshops for the local children and young people. They will also use the grant to play at community events and host a Big Band Battle.
• SPACE ARTWORKS CIC (Edinburgh) - £3,200 supporting artists with disabilities in the community. The project will build on the previously successful '100 Small Works' project which created and showcased small art works around a theme: this time holidays and travel in association with the Living Memory Association.
• Tynecastle Youth Community Pipe Band Support Group (Edinburgh) - £8,000 to continue to provide free tuition, instruments, band practice and weekend workshops to pupils at the Tynecastle High School cluster.
• Arts Inc. Community Interest Company (Dumfries and Galloway) - £9,579 to deliver an art project in care homes across Dumfries & Galloway. Older people will learn artistic techniques, paint pictures of historic sites in their area, then create a board game using their paintings and local knowledge.
• Cutting Edge Theatre (Fife) - £10,000 to facilitate over 20 young people and adults with disabilities to co-design a theatrical play, to be performed in Fife and Edinburgh.
• Kingdom Theatre Company (Fife) - £3,681 to deliver a series of performances in care homes throughout Fife during February and March 2019.
• East Glasgow Music School (Glasgow) - £5,990 to provide opportunities for young children to learn a musical instrument and/or receive singing lessons. The young children will also participate in performances within their community and at music festivals.
• House for an Art Lover (Glasgow) - £7,500 to provide a series of arts based workshops for older men geared around improving confidence in engaging with arts activities.
• Oak Note SCIO (Glasgow) - £9,950 to deliver workshops in Glasgow nursery schools about the experiences of refugees. The sessions will incorporate puppets, illustrations, participatory songs and games.
• Eden Court Highlands (Highland) - £9,860 for a project to bring together local young and elderly people in four locations across Highland to take part in dance sessions, to share memories and to create a performance at the end of the 12 week project.
• Strathfest (Highland) - £2,200 to provide transport for school groups and volunteers so that they can attend the Strathfest Festival.
• Shakespeare's Kids (North Lanarkshire) - £7,500 to deliver drama and arts activities to children and young people in Cumbernauld. The grant will fund the rental a new town centre base, and allow then to deliver a range of activities and events.
• Lodestone Creative (West Dunbartonshire) - £9,945 to run a programme of 65 free arts workshops from April to September 2019 in Bowing Harbour. Sessions will be for adults, children and families and will take many forms including kids curiosity club, Saturday craft sessions and skills sharing sessions.

Today’s funding, totalling £1,502,897, comes from National Lottery Awards for All Scotland – a quick and simple way to access small National Lottery grants of between £500 and £10,000. See the full details of all the latest awards on the National Lottery Community Fund website.

The latest awards have also highlighted the importance of people getting active in their community, with everything from Karate classes for disabled people in the Highlands, boxing sessions for ethnic minority women in Glasgow and bushcraft activities for people with mental health concerns in Aberdeenshire.

A National Lottery Awards for All Scotland spokesperson said: “With Spring just round the corner it’s a great time to be getting out and about to enjoy a range of physical activities. Thanks to National Lottery players, this will now be possible for many people across Scotland who will be able to take part in a range of health and well-being activities whether that’s walking or cycling, dancing, taking up a new sport or enjoying outdoor nature pursuits.”

National Lottery Awards for All Scotland is open to applications on a rolling basis and can be received at any time. To find out what National Lottery Awards for All Scotland could do for your community visit our website www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/awardsforallscotland or phone 0300 123 7110.