MindOut awarded £312,086 Big Lottery Funding for age matters project

MINDOUT AWARDED £312,086 BIG LOTTERY FUNDING FOR AGE MATTERS PROJECT

This week has seen the UK’s Big Lottery Fund award funding of £54 million that will help over 1,700 community projects in England. This includes LGBTQ mental health service MindOut in Brighton and Hove, who will receive £312,086 over next five years for their Age Matters project.Every week the National Lottery help good causes and, in the year ending March 2016, they gave funding of £1.9bn to good causes. That included giving training grants to many successful Olympic athletes.MindOut already offer the local LGBTQ community a wide range of services including advocacy, peer support groups and workshops. Last year, they and the Allsorts Youth Project received a £389,599 Big Lottery Fund grant to help with an Urgent Needs advocacy service. Elsewhere in the city, the Brighton Toy and Model Museum received £57,900 from the Heritage Lottery Fund.Speaking about this new Big Lottery Fund grant, MindOut CEO Helen Jones told Lottery24.com that the much-welcomed funding will “enable us to provide mental health advice, information and advocacy as well as to develop our peer support group work and peer mentoring services for people over the age of 50 and particularly people over the age of 70."It's the latest bit of good news for members of the LGBTQ community after Melissa Ede won £4m on a National Lottery Blue scratchcard last year.The Big Lottery Fund grant will the Age Matters project to develop support for people in residential care and supported housing. The MindOut CEO added that they would also help them in “addressing issues around ageism in LGBTQ communities."The planned initiatives have been developed in consultation with members of the older LGBTQ community and all their services will be co-produced. This will also include online support and intergenerational activities with LGBTQ people under the age of 30. It’s hoped that this will benefit both age groups and encourage the community to come together. The stigma that is still present towards the LGBTQ community will also be addressed.Thanks to the Big Lottery Fund grant, the group will be able to fund salaries for advocacy and peer support workers and volunteer expenses. Those interested in volunteering for this project can find more information at www.mindout.org.ukJames Harcourt, who is the England Grant Making Director at the Big Lottery Fund, commented that the money raised by National Lottery sales is life-changing and these grants are “throwing a spotlight on the amazing things communities are doing.”Play lottery online with us at Lottery24.com, it's quick and easy.