For immediate release: [Tuesday 12th March, 2024]
Durham Area Disability Leisure Group celebrates after receiving £186,000k of National Lottery funding to help children and young people with disabilities and their families.
Local community group, DADLG, is today celebrating after being awarded £186,000 in National Lottery funding to support its work with children, young people and their families living with disabilities. The group, based in Gilesgate in County Durham, will use the money to provide more activities for families across County Durham and to provide a wider range of opportunities.
DADLG has been running for more than 34 years and is run by both staff and volunteers. The organisation was founded in 1989 by people who realised that the community was struggling to provide support for local families and their children.
The group runs weekly activity sessions and weekend and holiday events for the whole family, where they join in with activities such as arts and crafts, Taekwondo, Youth Club, trampolining and soft play as well as more adventurous activities such as wall climbing, kayaking and dragon boating. Day trips and residential experiences are also enjoyed. DADLG helps children and young people to make friends, while learning new skills and having fun. Parents and carers love being able to join in with their children or relax with a coffee while chatting to other parents/carers in a similar situation. While the activities are enjoyable, the children and young people are also gaining greater confidence, self-belief and important social skills.
The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK, will see these sessions expanded to further locations across the county. This means that the number of children and young people able to participate will increase.
Lesley Clelland, on behalf of DADLG, says: “We’re delighted that The National Lottery Community Fund has recognised our work in this way. Now, thanks to National Lottery players we will be able to press on with our plans to broaden the range of opportunities available to children and young people with disabilities and their families in a wider range of locations. This is important because it helps both the children and the parents to build relationships with others facing similar challenges and to create their own supportive circles of friends and peers.”
A parent/carer, says: “We absolutely love the activities, we are so thankful for this service as we wouldn’t experience half the things, we have without them.”
The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its new strategy, ‘It starts with community’, which will underpin its efforts to distribute at least £4 billion of National Lottery funding by 2030.
As part of this, the funder has four key missions, which are to support communities to come together, be environmentally sustainable, help children and young people thrive and enable people to live healthier lives.
National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, last year The National Lottery Community Fund was able to distribute over half a billion pounds (£615.4 million) of life-changing funding to communities.
To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk
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Contact
Lesley Clelland, 07592366454 or email: lesley@dadlg.org
Pictures are available upon request.
Notes to Editors:
About The National Lottery Community Fund
We are the largest non-statutory community funder in the UK – community is at the heart of our purpose, vision and name.
We support activities that create resilient communities that are more inclusive and environmentally sustainable and that will strengthen society and improve lives across the UK.
We’re proud to award money raised by National Lottery players to communities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and to work closely with government to distribute vital grants and funding from key Government programmes and initiatives.
As well as responding to what communities tell us is important to them, our funding is focused on four key missions, supporting communities to:
- Come together
- Be environmentally sustainable
- Help children and young people thrive
- Enable people to live healthier lives.
Thanks to the support of National Lottery players, we distribute around £500 million a year through 10,000+ grants and plan to invest over £4 billion of funding into communities by 2030. We’re privileged to be able to work with the smallest of local groups right up to UK-wide charities, enabling people and communities to bring their ambitions to life.
National Lottery players raise over £30 million each week for good causes throughout the UK. Since The National Lottery began in 1994, £47 billion has been raised and more than 670,000 individual grants have been made across the UK – the equivalent of around 240 National Lottery grants in every UK postcode district.
