£1m National Lottery Awards For All to boost Scottish communities

Published: 01 Mar 2018

Creative community projects across Scotland have received funding from National Lottery Awards for All Scotland, supported by Creative Scotland.

Grants of between £300 and £10,000 are awarded to community, arts and sports groups on behalf of Big Lottery Fund, Creative Scotland and sportscotland. A total of £1,116,821 of grants were announced in the most recent awards published by Big Lottery Fund this week.

Some of the creative projects to be supported include:

Syn Festival Edinburgh, which has received funding to deliver its 2018 Festival programme. Under the theme “Odysseys”, it aspires to introduce a creative dialogue festival on diversity, multiculturalism and symbiosis. A wide range of events will be hosted, including a multi-arts exhibition, music & theatre performances and short films screening, and more than 100 emerging and established artists, filmmakers, performers, musicians will have the opportunity to present their work to a larger audience, as admission to all events is free.

Events will be held between 8 -16 March at Teviot Row House, Adam House and George Square Lecture Theatre, with an art exhibition at the Upper Church, Summerhall from the 9 - 22 March.

ice&fire theatre is dedicated to exploring human rights concerns through performance. With Awards for All funding they will produce Detention Dialogues - a documentary script which will reflect the experiences of people who have been through the immigration detention system in Scotland.

Working in collaboration with Scottish Detainee Visitors, and their Life After Detention support group, we will establish relationships with men and women associated with the group, and conduct ten in-depth 'life history' interviews, which lead to the current point and will explore how immigration detention has affected and shaped their lives here. From edited transcripts of these interviews we will create a new piece of documentary theatre. These first hand accounts will address a very pertinent subject in an immediate and powerful way, providing an opening for discussion and debate in the community and elsewhere.

ice&fire's Steven Ritchie said: "We have witnessed the often cathartic experiences that participants have had attending our performances. When considering how alienated and isolated people who have been in detention can feel - the effect of having their stories told by actors and appreciated by audiences who are often moved to tears is not to be underestimated."

Dirliebane Theatre Company will present SPACE, a clown theatre performance for children aged 9-12 about making mistakes, picking yourself back up and going somewhere new. It will be developed with Primary 7 pupils in partner schools and performed in schools and venues across Edinburgh, Fife, Perth & Kinross and Easterhouse.

It is the first show created by Dirliebane Theatre Company building on the success of their project BIG which toured nurseries and venues in 2016, based around moving from nursery to primary school. A member of staff at one participating nursery said: “I’ve worked in this nursery for nine years and I’ve never seen the children so engaged for so long".

The creative projects supported include:

• Aurora (Aberdeen City) - This group will use the funding to deliver their annual International Festival of Traditional Dance and Music, which will take place in August 2018. The festival promotes Scottish traditional music and also invites guests from Italy and France.
• Dalry Open Film (City of Edinburgh) - This film-making skill-share group for adults, based in southwest Edinburgh, will use the funding to provide a year-long series of activities for members.
• Dirliebane Theatre Company (City of Edinburgh) - This project will create a clown theatre piece for 9-12 year olds about getting things wrong, picking yourself up again and finding your space. The project will focus on the transition from primary to secondary school and will be performed in schools in summer 2018.
• Syn Festival Edinburgh (City of Edinburgh) - This group, based in Edinburgh, runs the annual Syn festival which is a volunteer-run multi-arts festival which derives its theme culturally and socially from Greece. The funding will support the group with running costs towards the 2018 event.
• McManus 168 (Dundee City) - This organisation operates an art gallery and museum in Dundee. This funding will allow them to work with a group of adults with learning disabilities in a series of creative workshops around an archive project that the McManus is working on.
• Cumnock Area Musical Production Society (East Ayrshire) - This project will enable the group to increase participation in their activities by allowing them to run additional workshops and performances.
• Abhinaya (SCIO) (Glasgow City) - This dance academy will use the funding to celebrate its 14 years of existence with an event which will bring communities together through a Multicultural Dance and Music Showcase.
• Ice and Fire Theatre (Glasgow City) - This group develops original theatre productions taken from human rights testimony and documentary evidence. This project will enable the group to develop and perform a production based around the experiences of refugees in Glasgow.
• West Highland Community Rail Partnership (Highland) - This group will use the funding to commission a six week community theatre project, based on Noel Cowards short stage play ‘Still Life’, which will take place at six venues along the West Highland Line between Crianlarich and Mallaig.
• Artlink Central Limited (Stirling) - This project will provide a range of arts opportunities for people living with dementia in the Stirling area.

Gary Cameron, Head of Place, Partnerships and Communities at Creative Scotland, said: "We are delighted that our partnership with the Big Lottery Fund and sportscotland on Awards for All continues to benefit communities across Scotland. The range of supported projects announced this week further demonstrates the creativity of our communities and the important role of arts and culture in bringing people together."

A National Lottery Awards for All spokesperson said: “This is National Lottery money in action, reaching into communities across Scotland making a real difference to the people who live there. The groups receiving funding showcase the range of projects that can be funded through this programme and the difference that the smallest amounts of money can make.”

National Lottery Awards for All Scotland is now more straightforward to apply to and faster to get funding from. Applications are received 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 the Big Lottery Fund website or phone 0300 123 7110.