Another year, another Europe day
The last year has seen our Active Inclusion fund work with 75
projects who have in turn supported more than 1900 people, many of
who are some of the hardest to reach in our communities. Over
£6.5m of funding has been awarded.
In June last year 25 organisations received a share of £3.5m
from the Active Inclusion fund and we shone the light to see how
this money was helping to tackle the disability employment gap,
find out more here.
For world mental health awareness day members of our Active
Inclusion team visited the Arts Factory in Ferndale, who are
running an Active Inclusion project, funded by the European Social
Fund, called ‘Changing People, Changing Lives’., find out more
about the visit here.
In September 2018 our Social Business Growth fund announced and
additional £1.5m of European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to
continue to provide their innovative mix of grant and repayable
finance to social businesses throughout Wales. This funding
has helped organisations increase their turnover as well as their
social impact, whilst creating new, meaningful and sustained jobs
in local communities.
Building on the success of the Social Business Growth fund we
were also able to launch an entirely new strand of funding worth
£1.2m (ERDF) – the Community Asset Development Fund. This fund
provides support to social businesses who are keen to take on or
expand community assets.
The team toured around the country throughout November to build
interest in the scheme and these events were well received.
The level of interest has been significant, and we hope to
announce some new awards in the coming weeks.
March saw WCVA’s annual event Gofod3, all the European projects
were busy delivering workshops and building networks with people
from across the sector. Active Inclusion delivered three workshops
to help show the level of support provided by the team to
organisations delivering projects. Prime Cymru, NPTCVS and the Arts
Factory told their stories of what is really like to deliver an
Active Inclusion Project.
The 3-SET team worked to bring together a visual representation
of WCVA’s journey with European funding which was revealed at
Gofod3. The journey shows how the funds that we have developed over
the years have led to what we are delivering today. Since
2000 WCVA have –
- Invested over £10m to help third sector organisations grow
- Over £100m in European funding has gone to employability
projects - Over 10,000 people have found full time employment as a result
of funding provided - Over 60,000 people have had their confidence improved
You will find more information about our journey here.
Are you running a European project? Do you want us to share the
stories of your successes? Get in touch with the 3-SET team with
your stories 3set@wcva.org.uk.
