Creativity brings London families together

10 Jan 2008 09:40 AM

Children in Lambeth will be brushing up on their family bonding with parents, grandparents and carers as they enjoy family learning through art being funded by a Big Lottery Fund award of £80,000 announced yesterday for the Triangle Arts Trust.

The grant will encourage family bonding and education through art and is one of two awards in the capital totalling £546,181 from BIG’s Family Learning programme. The scheme supports projects and organisations that bring adults and children together to improve their skills and knowledge.

The Even Better Together project will offer 25 creative projects a year at various venues across the borough giving entire families the opportunity to work with freelance artists. Families will work together to produce one final piece that will eventually be exhibited at the venue.

Anna Vass, Education Coordinator for Gasworks, a Lambeth art gallery forming part of the Triangle Arts Trust, said: “At our pilot art workshops families kept asking when they would become a regular thing. Thanks to this funding we can provide a three-year programme offering regular art activities that will also help families build new connections and friendships.”

Also bagging Lottery thousands this week is the nia Project who received a whopping £466,508 to allow women and children affected by violence, including domestic violence, to learn, develop and increase self-esteem together. nia was amongst the first refuge projects in the country and 30 years on is still an active member of the Women’s Aid Federation of England (WAFE)

Reaching out to nearly 1000 women and children in greater London, the project will offer a range of one-off sessions and eight-week courses including cookery, gardening and music and will focus on black, ethnic minorities and refugee families.

Nicola Weller, Head of Family Support Services for nia, said: “Through learning together families will have the opportunity to spend supported quality time together, building positive relationships which perhaps might not always have been possible when they were living in violent situations. Both mums and children will also have the opportunity to learn new skills and build self confidence in their ability to learn - supporting children to feel confident at school and mums to go on and enjoy further learning opportunities too.”

Debbie Pippard, Big Lottery Fund Head of Region for London, said: “BIG’s Family Learning programme awards money to organisations that are helping to increase the opportunities for families to interact with one another and enjoy learning together. These projects are fantastic example of just that and will allow parents and children to share new experiences and have fun together in a safe, rewarding environment.”

Further information

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours contact: 07867 500 572
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102 030
Textphone: 0845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Notes to Editors

• The Big Lottery Fund rolls out close to £2 million in Lottery good cause money every 24 hours which together with other Lottery distributors means that across the UK most people are within a few miles of a Lottery-funded project.
• The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since its inception in June 2004. It was established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
• Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to Good Causes. As a result, over £20 billion has now been raised and more than 280,000 grants given out across the arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.
• Family Learning programme helps parents to understand more about how their children learn and encourages adults and children to learn together as a family. It opened for applications in September 2006 and is set to close for applications on August 29, 2008.
• There is a total of £40 million available for the programme and applicants can apply for grants of a minimum of £10,000 and a maximum of £500,000.