26 March 1998

Minority ethnic group secure £10 million in grants from the National Lottery Charities Board

The National Lottery Charities Board today announced grant awards totalling around £10 million to fund projects directly benefiting minority ethnic groups in England. Of this total £7.5 million was given to projects led by minority ethnic communities.

'We received around 461 applications from minority ethnic groups in this latest round of awards and 74 were successful,' said Janet Paraskeva, Director for England. 'That is a success rate of about one in six for projects from this sector of the community.'

'This will help projects such as the Tyne and Wear Black Housing project who receive £276,885 to work towards ensuring that the housing needs of ethnic minority groups are met. A £10,000 grant to the Ramblers' Association will fund a project to encourage people from ethnic communities to explore and enjoy the countryside.'

The grants are part of a total £100 million awarded to 1,002 projects by the National Lottery Charities Board, to groups across England under the theme Improving people's living environment and Voluntary sector development. Awards have been given to groups working on projects that aim to improve the quality of life for the community by helping those at greatest disadvantage. The projects are addressing issues that affect a great number of communities such as:

• £2.6 million awarded homelessness and housing organisations
• £1.7 million awarded to support the minority ethnic voluntary sector
• £2 million awarded to projects to help people of minority ethnic communities to gain access to the countryside and clean up their local area

The largest award to a minority ethnic communities this round goes to the Coppice Neighbourhood Group in Oldham, Lancashire. This project has received a three year grant of around £425,000 for the extension, refurbishment and staffing of a community centre to serve the local Asian community.

A grant of £60,000 has been given to the Chinese Mental Health Association of London to promote mainstream care and housing services for Chinese people. Whilst the smallest ethnic minority beneficiary grant this round was awarded to the London based Murray Park Mother and Toddler Group, a volunteer led play group project who receive a three year grant of £2,352 for rent, equipment and running costs.

Grants have been awarded to charities such as the British Refugee Council to work across all of England. The Council will use its grant of £187,236 provide information and services to national and local refugee organisations.

This latest round of awards attracted well over 4,000 applications of which 10% were from minority ethnic specific projects.

The National Lottery Charities Board welcomes grant applications from all sectors of the community. Applications details are available in the following languages: English, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Gujarati, Punjabi, Somali, Swahili and Urdu as well as in Braille and large print by telephoning: 0345 919191.

A new grants programme under the theme of Poverty is due to be launched in the summer of 1998.