Successful applications to the Community Capacity & Resilience Fund phase two

Successful applications to the Community Capacity & Resilience Fund phase two

We're pleased to announce that 68 organisations across Scotland will be supported to deliver services and projects that help mitigate the effects of welfare reform, combat inequality, promote social inclusion and have a preventative impact in communities. Awards range from £1,000 to £5,000, with the average award being £4,500. This investment from Scottish Government will increase the capacity and resilience of communities and third sector organisations to provide people with the support and skills they need. The successful organisations will deliver services and projects between January and August 2017 and you can see below the type of activity that will take place.

About Youth, Edinburgh

About Youth, Edinburgh will deliver a project working with young people aged 16 to 24 who are not currently employed or engaged with further education or training. It will involve a group work programme and one to one support tailored around supporting participants to be confident, healthy and to develop and learn new skills which improve their quality of life, employability potential and future opportunities. It will involve taking part recreational activities around sport and culture and participating in cooking skills workshops and issue based sessions themed around benefits and housing, drugs and alcohol and mental health

Art Angel, Dundee

The work of Art Angel, Dundee is built around bringing people together via group based working offering people from chaotic, often isolated lives the chance to make art in a safe space along with others who have similar experiences. This project will see us offering one to one working to the substantial number of people who are so isolated and disconnected from everyday life that the offer of a place in one of our groups would be too much to even consider, let alone manage. This smaller initial step is required in time working towards one of the groups when ready.

Ayrshire Healthy Living Enterprise, Irvine

This project will build our capacity to support and advise local people and help with the areas regeneration and build our resilience. We will gather information on a range of support services and load this to iPads that our volunteers can use when out and about visiting in the local community. We will be able to support the development of the volunteers over the 26 weeks which will allow us to have a pool of volunteers who can support over community in a range of ways and means.

Belville Community Garden Trust, Inverclyde

This project aims to build a stronger, safer community focusing on improving lifestyles and health, primarily through gardening, horticulture and healthy eating. We aim to break down social barriers for people living in one of Scotland's most deprived area and the hardest to reach groups including people with mental health issues, Syrian/Afghan refugees, individuals with ASN, young unemployed  and youths excluded from mainstream education. Our project will offer the chance of new learning experiences, improved community relationships, a sense of pride in the environment and improved mental and physical wellbeing through volunteering opportunities.

Black Isle Cares, Ross-shire

We will extend our volunteer led Meals-On-Wheels service to the elderly, which is a locally based project run in partnership between Black Isle Cares and local restaurants and provides restaurant prepared lunches. We will extend the service to the elderly in a wider geographical area.

Bridge Community Project, Livingston

We will create and develop a new space to provide bespoke client areas that will ensure we meet the increased demand for our services, enable partners to provide drop in services to our clients in our premises and facilitate the training of our volunteers and delivery of workshops.

BRIDGEND INSPIRING GROWTH (BIG), Edinburgh

We want to build on our successful pilot project, a cooking training group and community cafe. We want to develop, extend and sustain a model that can continue once our farmhouse renovation is complete and our centre fully open. We will provide training for 6 to 8 people marginalised due to welfare reform, dependency on benefits, unemployment, ethnicity, age and/or poor mental wellbeing. During their training they will run a weekly, social hub/café to provide a light lunch for socially isolated people on low incomes. We will provide our learners with a structured learning programme with the opportunity for qualifications, and practical experience.

Castlemilk Community Church, Glasgow

The ethos of our service attracts volunteers who wish to help others and we have the joy of working with volunteers from a range of cultures and beliefs. So it’s essential our volunteers have relevant training, both for their own future looking forward to employment and also for the sake of those they help. We will develop a tailor made volunteer training programme relevant to them and our service users' needs.

CCAST Highland

Our project is to work specifically on the Mansfield estate that has many issues such as long term unemployment, debt / rent arrears, anti- social behaviour / criminal activity, isolation, mental health issues, fly tipping, vandalism, poverty and loneliness. We hope to facilitate significant life changes in many lives within the Estate. There will be work clubs helping people to access employment and training opportunities; Food Bank to help reduce poverty; and addiction recovery groups. In addition to this there is a Housing Support service that helps people to keep their existing tenancies or resettle after a period of homelessness offering budgeting and financial advice.

Centipede, Muirhouse, Edinburgh

We hope to achieve a long term interest in food growing and stewardship of the brownfield spaces amongst the local community through this outreach schools educational project. Our innovative programme will employ an artist to engage, inspire and bring the growing project to life for the young people. Hands on outdoor work will teach the value of planting, growing, harvesting and cooking their own food. A chef will work with the children to create delicious food that they can enjoy and share. They will create their own dishes, their own images and new recipes of their own food.

Church House, Bridgeton [SCIO], Glasgow

Our project will deliver cooking classes that focus on teaching young people how to cook new and nutritious recipes, how to cook on a budget and help them to better understand the importance of healthy eating and a balance diet in their lives. At the end of each session the young people would then host their very own community meal for members of their family and friends to show off their new skills and share their knowledge of healthy eating. Our volunteers from the local community will be trained so they can help to deliver this programme both now and in the future.

CLEAR Buckhaven

Buckhaven has the poorest Datazone in Fife and is largely within the poorest 10% of areas in Scotland. We hope to reduce the costs for families/individuals by encouraging people to swap what they no longer need for things that they do at two large events. Additionally a wide range of organisations will be present at these events to broaden local connections and open up opportunities to access learning, training, work experience (through volunteering) and to access support and information services to improve their own capacity.

Clydesdale Citizens Advice Bureau, Lanark

We will provide a new specialist service in the Bureau by delivering independent, impartial, free and confidential advice and support to residents of the Clydesdale area who have not the access to, or the ability to, make an online benefits application. We will be specifically looking at assisting with Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction, Social Welfare Fund and Blue Badge Scheme applications.

Cranhill Parish Church, Glasgow

We will extend drop-in sessions to a further nursery school once a week, morning and afternoon and carry out more home visits as requested, and occasional outdoor play or gardening sessions. We work in partnership with Cranhill Primary, Bellrock Nursery and have been invited into Lamlash Nursery. We also work in partnership with Cranhill Development Trust in offering family activities during school holidays.

Denny & Dunipace Citizens Advice Bureau

We will pilot a dedicated outreach in Denny High School to assess the demand for, and how best to deliver, bespoke support for young people and their families who are in, or at risk of, financial difficulties. We’ll trial a blend of approaches with the overall aim of improving financial resilience including 1:1 sessions with pupils and their families;  raise awareness of this new service through attending events, meetings and delivering presentations; deliver workshops.

Destiny Angels, Glasgow

Destiny Angels Welfare Reform Project is a food and clothing bank service, however what makes it unique are the support activities which will assist vulnerable groups at a time of welfare reform and the imminent introduction of Universal Credit. We will deliver The Money Secret Programme aimed at single parents and others having difficulties with financial capability skills, confidence and resilience skills. We will also deliver The Food Bank and Advice Project by increasing an extra day or hours to the food and clothing bank.

Drumhub (SCIO), Drumchapel, Glasgow

We will work with local partner organisations to bring them closer to individuals and families who are often hard to engage with by running monthly information and community engagement open days. This will enable local people to broaden their knowledge around welfare issues and find ways of improving their circumstances through improved self-management and/or by knowing which agencies can support people. This will connect people to services and opportunities to overcome social isolation and address anxiety as well as working with local people and the community to design its own safety net and build on and harness the assets of local people and volunteers to find their own solutions, linking with existing community initiatives.

Eighteen and Under, Dundee

Many of our young people are care leavers, from broken families and many are young single mothers. They have not been taught to cook, shop or budget yet they have to fend for themselves and live on takeaways. Our project will learn the young people about healthy, cheaper foods and how to budget. We would plan a weekly meal with the young people, guide them towards healthy choices, help them source cheap foods and bring them to tether to cook and share food once a week.

Faith in Community Dundee

The Wonder Box is a heat retention bag (in the shape of a box), made from material and polystyrene balls in which food can be fully cooked at little cost. Used 2-3 times a week a Wonder Box can save anywhere between a quarter to a third on a user’s electricity or gas spend. We will work with 15-20 people in Dundee who are struggling with poverty or inequality, through developing the Wonder Box Initiatives in 2-3 support groups, giving them the skills to make the boxes for themselves, the confidence to use them, the encouragement of sharing and trying favourite recipes and the capacity to continue these initiatives within their support groups once our worker has finished.

Fife Arabic Society

This project will provide the opportunity to recruit 8 volunteers, of whom 5 will be from the new Syrian arrivals, 3 from the Arab community. The project will allow us to PILOT an IT training course at which twice weekly sessions for 8 participants from the Syrian families. The project will offer Money Advice sessions for the Syrian and people on benefit and/or needing support.

Govanhill Baths Community Trust, Glasgow

GBCT aim improve the health of the community through integrated food-based initiatives. In partnership with Crookston Community Food Project we run a weekly foodbank feeding approx. 60 mainly Eastern European families per week. In addition, we run a Healthy Eating Cookery Programme called Govanhill Grub as part of our Wellbeing Programme to address the dire health statistics in the area as well as people with mental health conditions. We wish to expand these two services to the local community as well as support a more strategic approach to food distribution and need within the local community. The project will help to enhance our existing service provision which has been developed in response to the lack of inclusive services in the area that meet both the aspirations and needs of local people over the last few years.

Hamilton Information Project for Youth, Hamilton

As a young information project we currently offer support for young people up to the age of 25 years old, in terms of employment and financial matters. As we have already built up our expertise and knowledge of providing these services to young people, we are looking to expand these opportunities to people over the age of 25 years from throughout the Hamilton area.

Heads Together, Roxburghshire

We support people with severe brain injuries and are based in the Scottish Borders and we have service users from 5 different towns. Funding towards the purchase of a minibus will ensure we can safely and comfortably transport service users to the many services we provide at our centre in Hawick. Until now our volunteers, who also have health issues have used their own transport to do this but this is not sustainable and impacts on the lives of our service users as they can miss out on accessing our services. The minibus would solve all the problems we have, our volunteers would have massive pressure lifted from them and we would be able to continue to provide this service and most likely expand as there is a waiting list to join us.

Home-Start West Lothian

Our vision is to expand Home-Start West Lothian by developing a Social Enterprise Employability/Training Programme, comprising of a High-end style Charity Shop offering accredited training qualifications for individuals in West Lothian looking to gain employment skills and experience in retail industry. For individuals requiring additional support a Home-Start Volunteer will be matched to a trainee to support, encourage and motivate them. The Shop, located in a main street in the hub of the community, in West Lothian will be warm and welcoming, will offer good quality clothes and soft furnishings for sale at a reasonable cost.

Izzy's Promise, Dundee

We will set up a Life Transition Project for ex- offenders, people who have been released from prisons, ex addicts or people recovering from addiction. We will recruit a Sessional worker who will recruit volunteers to help in the delivery of this project to vulnerable people who have been adversely affected by the welfare reforms. We will offer them practical support, and also help them to train as volunteers.

Kate’s Kitchen, Dumfriesshire

We combine the provision of free hot food in our unique cafe with support work. Whilst people are receiving a hot meal the support worker gets alongside them to establish their situation and offers support to tackle issues they face or come back to the worker in their own time. We would like to increase our opening days from 3 to 5 and employ a support worker for a further 2 days to meet increased demand.

Kidz-Eco CIC, West Lothian

Our pilot project will run for 6 months, supporting 100 families providing them with Kidz-Start packs. Referrals will be from relevant support agencies such as CAB, HomeStart and Sure-Start meaning that those most in need receive this free service. Children born into poverty are more likely to do less well at school and earn less as adults and we plan on reducing this cycle through this project and also the introduction to the concept of recycling, re-using and money management, helping create positive attitudes for the future.

Kincardine and Mearns Citizens Advice Bureau, Stonehaven

With this project we hope to pilot a new home visiting service. We will do this by recruiting and training volunteer advisers, who will carry out home visits and telephone advice. These volunteers would provide advice and assistance on a range of issues including benefits, debt, housing and food and fuel poverty. This would further develop the capacity of the organisation to support those affected by welfare reform and who are at risk of financial exclusion due to unemployment, ill health, caring responsibilities and the additional challenges that are faced by those living in rural communities.

Lanarkshire Deaf Club, Motherwell

We will provide an employment support to enable the Deaf community to access welfare advice and support to seek employment by using their first language of British Sign Language. There is no service in place to provide support for the deaf community in the area. With welfare reform and lack of employment opportunity this is leading to deterioration in many families and individuals mental health. The communication barrier faced by many Deaf in our society is a huge hurdle that needs to be addressed. Rather than valuable members of our society being left at home we need to put things in place to enable them to access and have the same rights as their hearing counterparts.

Meal on Me, Edinburgh

We will expand our services to help our clients get back on their feet, integrate back into society, and no longer need our services. We will recruit a part time worker who would conduct drop in clinics at our new office to expand the number of clients and interview and assess their needs and give out our meal vouchers/bus tickets.

Midlothian Financial Inclusion Network

We will improve access of individuals affected by welfare reform to affordable healthy food in Midlothian by; linking into the work of existing voluntary organisations, community groups (such as community gardens) and the community food map;  Piloting a voucher scheme for access for benefit claimants to free fruit and vegetable, working in partnership with the local Toot for Fruit van; produce a Guide to healthy Eating on a Budget in Midlothian that can be distributed to individuals and families experiencing food poverty, including those accessing homelessness services, emergency food parcels from the Foodbank or Crisis Grants.

Minority Communities Addiction Support Services, Paisley

We will work with disadvantaged people aged 18 - 65 who are not in employment, education or training who are having difficulties with benefits and finding it difficult to understand the welfare system due to language barriers and are struggling to maintain their tenancies or facing being homeless. We will support them to translate and understand letters, address any rent or council tax issues, access any relevant benefits, help them understand the process of appeals and negotiate any arrears by putting payment plans in place.

Natural Connections, Tranent

What will purchase a Shed for the members to build which will give them their first project and allow them to customise it for their future use. This Shed will be for the use of men and women of all ages which is a very different angle to the traditional Men’s Shed model and will promote skill sharing and intergenerational activities. It will focus more on the health and wellbeing of the members; focusing on self-management and reducing social isolation.

Options in Life, Fife

Our service which helps people with learning disabilities build the skills, confidence and knowledge needed to integrate more fully with mainstream society has been extremely popular since launching in 2013 and although we have expanded rapidly we have waiting lists of people eager to join. Our programme currently runs two days each week, working with up to 15 young adults with learning disabilities on each of those days. We want to extend the programme to three days per week.

Outside The Box Development Support Limited, Falkirk

This will be an extension of the Falkirk Food Buddies project which involves setting up peer support for older people in Falkirk around issues with food. This project would allow us to expand the service to incorporate more issues, using food as an incentive, a mechanism for forging relationships, a learning tool and confidence builder. We would run a drop in self-help sessions in the West of Falkirk Council Area for people over 50 on low incomes.

Penicuik North Kirk

We want to reach more children in our community who normally receive free school meals, with lunches for the 6 or 7 weeks of the summer vacation. Hence we need food, transport, temporary cooking teaching to ensure that as many of the 450 children are fed each summer. By building this resilience we expect that the money saved by the families can be used for 'normal family activities' i.e. picnics, beach visits etc - thus leading to family cohesion.

People Know How, Edinburgh

Our innovative/creative Social Innovation Academy will provide a unique opportunity bringing together a diverse group of 24-people; considered to be disadvantaged and facing socio-economic-marginalisation. We will work with them to mitigate the effects of welfare reform, combat inequality, promote social inclusion and encourage engagement with their community. With our support and the support they offer each other they will increase the capacity and resilience of their communities and third-sector-organisations to provide people with the support and skills they need and at the same time increase their own confidence, building problem solving skills and employability.

Project No.1, Dundee

We would like to expand and develop capacity of our organisation to be able to meet the support demands and raise awareness on the risks of sexual exploitation in Dundee. We will use the funds to recruit a sessional worker who will help in the delivery of this project. This project will target to work with 15 young care leavers and vulnerable people with drug and alcohol problems at risk of sexual exploitation. We will also recruit and train 5 volunteers to help in raising awareness, street outreach activities, and reaching out to the most vulnerable and hard to reach and at risk.

Pulse Community, East Renfrewshire

This project will bring together a cross sectoral partnership of Public and third sector service providers and community groups from across Barrhead, to deliver a 6 month long promotional campaign of thematic events and activities centred around a dedicated schedule of Pulse Radio broadcasts. These broadcasts involving Vox Pop interviews, topical news features, infomercials and podcasts will be designed raise local awareness, and promote the different ways in which the community of Barrhead, East Renfrewshire is tackling issues relating to welfare reform and inequality.

Raploch Community Partnership, Stirling

Our project's main aim will be to focus on connectedness for vulnerable members of the community to build resilience and tackle social isolation, by increasing the number of contacts or interactions someone has and to build their self- esteem so that they are able to confidently enter the world of work, and to sustain this. We will engage participants via cookery sessions and deliver a range of focussed workshops.

Renfrewshire Polish Association

We will extend our helpdesk service for Polish people who experience problems and need information and advice by recruiting and training additional volunteers and increasing our provision to include outreach surgery services.

Ruchazie Parish Church, Glasgow

We would like to employ a part time community development worker to increase the capacity of our Open Space Café to support local people to develop their own projects and increase self- confidence and move towards employment if appropriate. We aim to develop the cafe as a space to try new things, meet new people, engage with local issues and connect with welfare support, employability support and access to IT.

Senior Citizens Scotland

Our Income Maximisation Project will see a Welfare Officer employed, almost exclusively based in the community, visiting clients over the age of 60 in their homes where clients are most comfortable. Often it is council or other government organisations who provide assistance with benefits forms and income maximisation. Senior Citizens Scotland has the benefit of guidance and support from its parent charity, Glasgow Old People’s Welfare Association which has been working with older adults for over 65 years.

Shetland Link Up

We will deliver a peer support service to our clients, adults suffering/recovering from mental ill health, along with WRAP service (Wellbeing recovery Action Plans) WRAPs enable the person to take a completely personalised look at what keeps them well or hinders their mental health and what supports they do or can call on in their life, not just formal support from agencies but also friends, relatives, colleagues etc. They make the person assess fully what is (not) helpful to them, how they cope, what they can/do, do to improve or maintain their mental health and to avoid them reaching crisis stage.

Shopper-Aide Ltd, Kintyre

Shopper-Aide are looking to develop a pilot project that provides a service of social activities to reduce loneliness for people over 60 living in the community and unable to access community based support. The pilot project would expect to meet a minimum of 10 people to get a service that suits them and that 3-6 volunteers will be trained to provide activities and services.

Signpost, Livingston

We will research and draw together in one place all of the disparate information about financial help for families of young people with disabilities. This is currently scattered across various websites and resources, but can't easily be found. Information gathered will be shared with families using our services, published on our website, made into a booklet and shared with/distributed by other local agencies. Two staff will be trained to understand benefits, suggest ways to maximise income and support families to take financial control.

Solway Credit Union, Dumfries

We want to establish a facility for providing Immediate Loans to new members, without the need to be an existing saver. Currently, any loan applicant requires to have been a saving member for 13 weeks which excludes people who do not have any savings and do have an immediate need to borrow. Unfortunately this drives them to use other less scrupulous and much more expensive lenders.

Souper Saturday, Edinburgh

We will pilot a socially focused running club to engage with people at risk of becoming completely socially isolated and unable or unwilling to access mainstream sport or fitness services. We will offer an opportunity to a group of Souper Saturday's guests to take part in regular and scheduled physical activity aimed at helping them to achieve a degree of social structure, leading to improved physical and mental well-being. Through this project people will engage in regular physical exercise, form positive peer relationships, manage their goals and have more structure in their lives all of which will help them to improve their mental health and make it more likely that they will be able to sustain positive lifestyle changes and re-engage with mainstream society.

South Ayrshire Food Bank

The project will equip people in or at risk of poverty with the skills and knowledge to take more control of two closely inter-linked areas of their lives: health and finance. The courses we will deliver will enable them to budget for and prepare cheap yet good, home-cooked food for their families and themselves, thus reducing their reliance on expensive, sugar- and fat-laden ready meals and junk food. Presentations on nutrition, its importance for health and how cooking from scratch is cheaper than ready meals will also be delivered, coupled with cookery demonstrations.

Sovereign Credit Union, Cumnock

Over the past 2 years we have delivered talks about money management to groups of Jobcentre clients and we have learned from this is that when people are on Universal Credit/other benefits it is often too late to tell them about a major advantage of belonging to a credit union because their circumstances are already too straitened. What this project will do raise awareness within the community of the need to be in a position to deal with crisis before they happen by producing a booklet about money management in; arrange its distribution; promote it through links to other organisations in the community.

Speak Out Advocacy Project, South Lanarkshire

We will increase our one to one advocacy support throughout South Lanarkshire to meet the continual increase in demand by employing a dedicated advocate with a remit for welfare related issues, who will have the necessary expertise and skill set to support the most vulnerable and least able to successfully self- advocate. This builds on the work we carried out and lessons learned through previous funding.

Spiritual Warfare Wisdom Ministries, Paisley

Our organisation aims to continue and expand supporting Ethnic minority groups such as asylum seekers, Gypsies, migrants and Scottish vulnerable groups who we have been offering a variety of services to ranging from welfare benefit advice and support to groups that cannot communicate in English.

STRIDE, Dundee

Through support and help from the 5 volunteers that will be recruited, this project aims to help vulnerable ethnic minority women from the most deprived neighbourhoods of Dundee city to develop skills that will enable them to access employment through volunteering, peer mentoring, social networks and support with childcare responsibilities by forming in to merry go around child care support.

Tea in the Pot, Glasgow

Twelve local women completed the community development and health course 'Health Issues in the Community'. Many of the course modules deal with the effect of poverty and inequality. Our Project will help to tackle the local health and social effects and widening inequalities caused by welfare reform by creating opportunities for these women to share their learning and evidence from participation in the course in innovative ways with other local women and local agencies such as DWP, NHS, Social Work Department, Housing Department and local voluntary organisations.

The Libertie Project Ltd, Inverness

We will use fresh surplus food from local suppliers and producers to create free, hot and healthy meals, delivered to those facing disadvantage, inequalities and the impact of the welfare reform. Individuals in temporary accommodation for example have limited access to food storage and preparation facilities and have a limited budget to buy fresh food. Food banks locally provide essential supplies of long life or processed food but not fresh food. Creating a daily menu of freshly prepared nutritious soups, breads, pastas, salads and smoothies that are delivered to those in need will help mitigate the effects of the welfare reform, reduce food poverty, increase health and well- being and reduce social isolation.

The Maxwelltown Information Centre, Dundee

Our project will provide local community members accessing our centre for a food bank referral with not only access to a supply of fresh fruit and vegetables but the knowledge, ability and confidence to grow their own in the future. We will develop a dedicated plot and raised beds in our community garden for this sole use. An average of 30 individuals come to the centre for a food bank referral each month. What makes this project special is we will also provide the equipment and know-how for participants to grow their own in future.

The Pavillion (Greater Easterhouse), Glasgow

This project will promote, healthy eating & lifestyle choices alongside a keep fit programme and will instil the long term benefits of this to parents and the general adult population of Shettleston and the surrounding area. The project will organise weekly cooking and fitness classes for the adults in order for them to gain new skills as well as benefiting from the knowledge gained by learning about a healthy lifestyle.

The Ridge (Scotland) CIC, East Lothian

The Ridge Cafe will offer training for local people facing food poverty, to feed themselves and their families with nutritious/appetising food within limited budgets. This will involve weekly sessions with training in nutrition and budgeting. People will have a chance to learn to cook appetising, nutritious meals, using free/low cost locally available food. We will bring together local food businesses (in addition to those already involved) and growing projects to provide free food, to supplement food bank resources. We will provide additional volunteering opportunities in our cafe and at community meals, to help combat social isolation/to create local/cross-generational connections.

Together For Better Life, Glasgow

Research conducted by us revealed that Arabic speakers are constrained by their poor language skills and confidence to access resources, and that they experienced multiple sanctions because they did not understand letters from Job Centres. We want to build our capacity to deliver one-to-one support services to clients to protect them from consequences of the welfare reform by training a trustee and two people from the community.

Training Learning and Community SCIO, Barrhead

Our Sewing for Sustainability project will recruit a sessional dressmaker and a number of volunteers to teach participants, to sew from basic through to advanced techniques and upcycle fabric and discarded clothes to produce items for their own homes, families and also to sell in a pop up café shop. In additional to learning sewing skills (from basic to advanced) participants will also learn micro entrepreneurial skills such as budgeting, marketing, cost and pricing etc. Participants will have an opportunity to volunteer in the pop up café shop to develop hospitality skills in a fun and informal environment.

Tollcross Community Action Network, (TCAN) Edinburgh

TCAN is a network of organisations, working in partnership to develop a Community Hub providing a range of services to local people. Through this funding we will make a start on this by setting up welfare advice surgeries, delivered by CAB offering local, accessible, specialist advice on welfare reform. The advice service will include benefit checks to ensure people are getting all that they are entitled to.

Together For Better Life, Glasgow

Research conducted by us revealed that Arabic speakers are constrained by their poor language skills and confidence to access resources, and that they experienced multiple sanctions because they did not understand letters from Job Centres. We want to build our capacity to deliver one-to-one support services to clients to protect them from consequences of the welfare reform by training a trustee and two people from the community.

Training Learning and Community SCIO, Barrhead

Our Sewing for Sustainability project will recruit a sessional dressmaker and a number of volunteers to teach participants, to sew from basic through to advanced techniques and upcycle fabric and discarded clothes to produce items for their own homes, families and also to sell in a pop up café shop. In additional to learning sewing skills (from basic to advanced) participants will also learn micro entrepreneurial skills such as budgeting, marketing, cost and pricing etc. Participants will have an opportunity to volunteer in the pop up café shop to develop hospitality skills in a fun and informal environment.

Volunteer Centre Borders

VCB supported the development of the area’s first Shed in Galashiels in 2014 and subsequent Sheds in Hawick, Jedburgh, Eyemouth, Kelso and Coldstream. There are now over 100 men involved, many of whom have undergone radical improvements in their health and well-being simply from having a renewed focus in life. VCB is aware of the appetite to establish Sheds in many other of the Borders towns and villages and to help facilitate that we will stage a Scottish Borders Men’s Shed Festival which would bring Shedders together from across the area to showcase their work with the primary aim of raising awareness and enticing more men to join the movement

West Dunbartonshire Community Foodshare

When people present at any of our three weekly foodbanks we will support them to make contact with one of the advice services in the area. We will devise an action plan which will ensure that, while they receive the relevant support and advice to resolve the issue (debt, benefit sanctions etc) they receive practical support from Foodshare. We will put in place a support package including emergency food parcels and provision of new skills like cooking low-cost nutritional food and growing their own produce. We will equip individuals with the skills to live independently of foodbank provision once the identified issue is resolved.

West Dunbartonshire Minority Ethnic Association

We will provide a programme of activity to support the local ethnic minority community in the area better understand and be supported to understand the impact of welfare reform changes. We will operate 2 specific weekly drop in sessions, manned by trained volunteers and staff from partner agencies to deal with individual questions and issues. We will use our volunteers to provide public awareness sessions across West Dunbartonshire as requested. We will also provide volunteers to attend meetings or appointments with members where they are feel that support and advocacy would be helpful.

West Lothian Financial Inclusion Network

We will deliver cooking in conjunction with different activities. A number of young families have expressed an interest in learning to cook, but felt that it was too expensive. We will show these parents and children that with budgeting skills, blind tasting and cooking together that they can maximise their income. Often cooking classes only concentrate on the parents this is different as we would encourage them to cook together. We will deliver the cooking in conjunction with activities such as welfare and benefit checks and financial literacy budgeting workshops.

West Lothian Foodbank c/o Whitburn Pentecostal Church

West Lothian Foodbank has been helping local people in crisis since 2012. Every day people in West Lothian go hungry for reasons ranging from redundancy to receiving an unexpected bill on a low income. Due to the increased demand for our services and the widespread rural areas within West Lothian, we have identified a need to open at least two new centres in 2017. We would anticipate these to be East Calder and Armadale/Blackridge.

Whiteinch Transformation, Glasgow

We will employ a dedicated money trainer for 8 hours per week to allow us to meet requests to deliver money courses in schools and community venues to improve financial education and prevent people getting into debt. We want to develop the service supporting people in debt as a result of welfare reform, offering comprehensive support and ensuring that people in difficulty know about the service and can access help. The money courses help people look at their finances in a nonthreatening way, and can prevent debt (or further debt).