WIREDGOV

Scottish children and young people with sight loss or who are hard of hearing are amongst those to benefit for a £10 million boost from the Big Lottery Fund.

Recently 21 Scottish groups are sharing in £10,273,320 from the Fund’s Investing in Communities scheme including charities Visability, RNIB and Action on Hearing Loss, all of which will seek to improve the lives of young people with visual or hearing impairments and their families.

Big Lottery Fund Scotland Chair, Maureen McGinn, said: “Investing in Communities funding helps people and communities most in need. Recently we are awarding over £10 million that will make a positive impact, helping to change lives and support 21 community projects to grow and expand across the country. Among those people benefitting are children and young people who are hard of hearing or who are affected by sight loss. This is life changing money which will make a big difference not only to these young lives, but also to their families’.”

Visual impairment charity, Visibility, receives £441,844 to deliver habilitation training for parents and teachers, family networking events, online and telephone support, and a range of fun and educational activities for children across many areas in Scotland.

Thanks to a grant of £395,854, RNIB, will run a pilot project to provide early intervention support to families and children at the point of diagnosis in 14 local authorities across Scotland.

Meanwhile Action on Hearing Loss, receives £442,328 to help deaf and hard of hearing young people in Glasgow make the transition from school into further education, training and employment. 

A full list of the recent successful 21 projects can be found here

Also announced recently is £136,372 to 14 projects from Big Lottery Fund Scotland’s Investing in Ideas programme. Details of those grants is available here

Big Lottery Fund Press Office:  0141 242 1451
Website:    www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Twitter:    @BIGScotland #biglf 
Facebook:    www.facebook.com/BigLotteryFundScotland

Notes to editors

• The Big Lottery Fund supports the aspirations of people who want to make life better for their communities across the UK. We are responsible for giving out 40% of the money raised by the National Lottery and invest over £650 million a year in projects big and small in health, education, environment and charitable purposes. 
• Since June 2004 we have awarded over £6.5billion to projects that make a difference to people and communities in need, from early years intervention to commemorative travel funding for World War Two veterans.
• Since the National Lottery began in 1994, £33 billion has been raised and more than 450,000 grants awarded.