London City Airport’s Community Fund awards second round of grants to 14 local charities and not-for-profit organisations

London City Airport’s Community Fund awards second round of grants to 14 local charities and not-for-profit organisations

LONDON, UK, 2019-Dec-02 — /Travel PR News/ — The second round of grants for London City Airport’s Community Fund have been awarded. In total, 14 local charities and not-for-profit organisations, across ten East London boroughs, will each receive a payment of up to £3000.

These grants provide a financial boost to local groups, such as mental health charities, disability groups and sports teams as well as those providing family support, mentoring programmes and employability training.  Following an initial tranche of awards in September a total of more than £75,000 worth of grants have now been awarded, supporting a broad range of initiatives that enable positive and significant change within and across diverse communities in East London.

The airport has received more than 200 applications since announcing the Fund in May.

The November grants were selected by a judging panel that includes representatives from the airport, local authorities and FlyBe, which joined the Fund’s board of trustees following the airline’s leading noise performance in 2018.

They reported a number of common themes across all the recipients, that they either:

  • build stronger, safer and healthier communities;
  • create more sustainable and greener communities;
  • raise aspirations of East Londoners; or
  • create pathways into employment.

Amongst the beneficiaries were Just Enough Global, whose submission stood out because of its clear focus on education programmes for young people in Newham, helping to build stronger, safer local communities close to the airport. Home-start Havering, a charity working to provide tailored practical and emotional support to vulnerable local families, have also received a grant to fund more volunteers in their area.

Nazmin Begum, Corporate Responsibility and Community Engagement Executive at London City Airport, said:

“We are proud to champion the work of grassroots organisations that make a real difference to families and individuals on the airport’s doorstep. Receiving so many submissions to the Community Fund over the last six months just demonstrates the wealth of creative and supportive programmes being run in East London and I want to congratulate all the successful applicants.

“We are already starting to see what the airport’s financial contributions can help these vital organisations to deliver, making a small difference to such a large number of people in our local communities. We look forward to working with more groups in 2020 as we enter a new year of grant-giving and would encourage people to spread the word.”

Bonney Baggaley, Chief Operations Officer, Just Enough Group, said:
“We are delighted to be able to receive these funds to deliver our child appropriate workshops on knife crime to eight primary schools in Newham, surrounding London City Airport. This work will benefit at least 720 children aged between 8 and 11. Receiving support like this enables charities like the Just Enough Group to get important key messages into school who really need this level of awareness.”

Lorraine Clear, Scheme Manager, Home-start Havering, said:
“Home-Start Havering would like to give a big “thank you” to London City Airport for their support. We are a local charity supporting families with children under the age of 5 years. With the aid of volunteers we help parents build better lives for their children. With the help of the Community Fund we are able to continue to work with families in need across the borough.”

Applications are now being accepted for the third round of Community Fund grants and the deadline for submissions is 24 January 2020. Successful recipients will be announced in February.

The full list of successful organisations, by Borough are:
 
Newham
Royal Docks Learning and Activity Centre
This project will build on our Grass Routes community collaboration to activate a physical corridor of green and open spaces through North Woolwich and Silvertown. This is an element of a long term vision to shape local development, building on neighbourhood networks and partners, starting with small scale projects to facilitate community cohesion, increase biodiversity, improve the quality of the public realm and realise the community wealth building potential, proactively determining the future of the area.

Community Food Enterprise Limited
CFE’s mission is to work exclusively in East London in partnership with front-line charitable and community organisations to alleviate Food Poverty and give members of some of the poorest boroughs in London an opportunity to fulfil their potential.

Aston-Mansfield
Aston-Mansfield has delivered an outstanding-rated play project since 1999. It delivers wraparound care for children aged 5-11. The project provides fantastic outcomes for its participants but through speaking to those who have left the programme we have recognised a gap in local provision. The workshop days, which young people commit to attending as part of the programme are designed to develop skills and knowledge in young people that build personal resilience’s and create a safe environment to have what are often difficult conversation.

Just Enough Group
Delivering whole days of knife crime workshops to 8 primary schools in Newham. This project will benefit at least 720 children aged 8-11 years old. We anticipate that over 90% of these children will be residents in Canning Town, Silvertown and Plaistow.  Just Enough can provide a piece to the solution of knife crime in these areas.

Barking and Dagenham
Excellent Tutoring Resource ELLA
This is a structured community-based programme, aiming to support disadvantaged young people (NEETs) from BAME backgrounds in Barking and Dagenham to pursue their employment goals and those that are currently working less than 16 hours a week or on a zero-hours, through confidence building and equipping them with skills development to make positive life choices.

The programme consists of a combination of employability skills, personal development sessions and opportunities to gain an insight into the world of work through volunteering placements into a number of community-based employers.

Hackney
Clapton Common Boys Club
YES! – Youth Educational Services – is a holistic mentoring programme focussed on helping 45 disadvantaged and disengaged young people (aged 19-25) into employment and to support 45 peer mentees aged 7-11 years.  The project will take a three pronged approach providing: formalised teaching guidance; workshop training, support and management; and individual placement work experience with a peer mentee aged 7-11(1-2-1 support).

Chats Palace
Social network for Hackney residents 65+yrs. Chats Palace is an arts centre with a civic role, empowering local people. We view the arts, with their inherent ability to provoke, catalyse and enable the way that people engage with the world around them, as the means by which we can make a positive contribution to the life of our borough. Our key focus areas are with those who are marginalised, excluded or without a voice; working in partnership we devise and deliver projects that combine artistic and social interaction to engender positive, life-long change.

Tower Hamlets
UpRising Leadership
UpRising’s Fastlaners is a full-time programme (5-8 days) aiming to address the challenges and barriers young people face in gaining meaningful employment and succeeding at their chosen careers. Uprising will deliver three Fastlaners Programmes over the course of 2020 to 25-30 young people aged 18-25 from East London to improve their employability and reach their full potential.

Each programme is comprised of two parts. The first is an employability course running full time for 8 days. The second phase of the programme is optional and provides ongoing mentoring and support to the participants for a further 3-6 months.

Young stars elite U7
A local community organisation who offer football teams and DJ lessons for kids as well as Zumba classes for adults. The aim of our organisation is to help tackle knife and gang culture within our community and give the kids a safe environment to make friends and stay away from the temptations of crime and anti-social behaviour.

We aim to use the money to help take the kids on trips, help purchase equipment and to fund our classes.  Our project will promote a healthy lifestyle, tackle obesity and encourage healthy living for both kids and adults as well help kids stay off the street, make new friends and gain life skills.

Lewisham
Young Lewisham Project
Young Lewisham Project is a small charity providing vocational courses to young people who are involved in criminal justice or excluded or at risk of exclusion from school.  We deliver vocational courses to young people in bike maintenance, motorbike maintenance, woodwork and gardening.  Our courses are accredited by OCN and ASDAN so young people can achieve meaningful, measurable outcomes.

Young Lewisham Project is also setting up a participation group to have a more formal process through which we can involve young people in the planning, design, delivery and evaluation of our projects.

Havering
Home-Start Havering
Home-Start Havering has been providing a vital lifeline to vulnerable families in Havering since 1999, delivering friendship and support to families in their own homes, using locally trained parent volunteers who are carefully “matched” to the families they help. We help families to cope with the challenges they are facing by building their resilience and connecting them to vital services in the community to help prevent families reaching crisis point.

Redbridge
One Place East
One Place Creative (OPC) aims to raise awareness of employment opportunities in the creative industries and work towards tackling digital exclusion. The project is targeted at disabled people, including people with lived experience of mental illness, long-term health conditions and people with a learning disability and Autism (One Place East’s primary beneficiaries).

The second project aim is to address the barriers disabled people experience in this growing segment of the labour market by building relationships with creative businesses and educational establishments that can support skill and qualification attainment.

Working in multiple Boroughs (including Barking and Dagenham, Hackney, Havering, Newham, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest)

Maggie Keswick Jencks Cancer Caring Centres Trust (Maggie’s Barts)
Maggie’s is a cancer care charity, running a unique evidence-based programme of support across 21 of our centres in the UK. Our programme has been developed in consultation with leading clinical practitioners to complement medical care.

Maggie’s Barts offers this free practical, social and emotional support to anyone affected by cancer, including family and friends, in east London. Last year our centre welcomed over 12,800 visits, including nearly 2,500 people who were newly diagnosed with cancer.

Blind in Business
The project is career planning for blind and sight impaired children aged 13-16. The aim is to raise their aspirations of isolated children in east London and give them pathways to employment, showing them the right path and how they can cope with their sight condition.

We do this by informing them about career planning, developing their confidence and introducing them to blind and sight impaired role models in modern careers, such as banking, IT and teaching.

Notes to editors

  • One of the grants from September went to Lambeth Libraries, which has been able to expand its hugely popular workwear lending scheme at Brixton Library, providing clothes and accessories for local people attending interviews.
  • More information on the Community Fund can be found at http://www.londoncityairport.com/corporate/responsible-growth/community-fund. Applications for the first round of the 2020 Community Fund is now open to prospective applicants, with a deadline of 24 January 2020.
  • Anyone with questions or queries can contact Community.Fund@londoncityairport.com.
  • The London City Airport Community Fund is a registered charity. no.1182642
  • The Board of Trustees comprises:
    • Duncan Alexander, London City Airport Consultative Committee (Independent Chair)
    • Tessa Simpson, Head of Environment and Technical Operations
    • Liam McKay, Director of Corporate Affairs
    • Councillor Saima Ashraf, Deputy Leader of the Council, Barking and Dagenham
    • Joy-Caron Canter, Centre Director at RDLAC, representative from Newham
    • Maja Gedosev, Director of Communications, Flybe

Contact:
Andrew Scott
Andrew.Scott@londoncityairport.com
07801579273

Source: London City Airport

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