We have LANDED cash pot
Almost £280k of funding
A Wishaw-based peer education project has LANDED more than £ 276,000 in vital funding that will secure its future for the next three years.
The LANDED project, whose future hung in the balance only 18 months ago, learned last week that its bids for a number of tenders have been successful.
The cash injection will see it rolling out a raft of initiatives and workshops for the benfit of the health and welfare of young people across Lanarkshire over the next three years.
LANDED is a young persons’ charity that provides and promotes peer education services for young people and service providers in Lanarkshire.
It offers volunteering opportunities for young people and supports them to become positive, active citizens.
At the end of 2016, LANDED staff were facing redundancy after a change in the financial landscape left the project in a precarious financial position.
Now project manager Jacqui Flanagan and her five-strong team are celebrating after hard work and a glowing proven track record reversed the project’s fortunes and secured it a tranche of funding from the South Lanarkshire Alcohol and Drug Partnership, the Voluntary Action Fund and Big Lottery.
The SL Alcohol Drug Partnership has signed a £70,000 a year, three-year contract which, in the first year alone, will see the Wishaw-based LANDED project delivering 12 alcohol brief intervention training courses to raise awareness of alcohol issues among young people.
With the aim of facilitating early intervention, participants will comprise anyone in South Lanarkshire - including those in the third sector - who works with young people.
As part of the same contract, LANDED has also been charged with delivering 12 new projects on substance misuse and so-called legal highs.
The successful bid will also fund two peer education satellite groups, targeting third year pupils. These groups will deliver alcohol awareness input to young people, using LANDED’s acclaimed peer education approach.
In addition, LANDED will deliver 30 substance misuse awareness-raising workshops aimed at young people in the community, especially those who are part of the ‘employability agenda,’ including low academic achievers.
The Ke n i l w o r t h Avenue- based project will also contribute to parental events, and will have an online social media presence offering information on local services and changes to legislation.
Thanks to a three-year funding package totalling £26,065 from the Voluntary Action Fund, a support worker will be deloyed to help Lanarkshire’s young people achieve their potential through volunteering.
And £40,000 from the Big Lottery Fund will finance a volunteer development officer.
Welcoming the tender wins, Jacqui Flanagan said: “It has been a long time coming, but the hard work has paid off. It’s an enormous pat on the back for everyone for doing their jobs so well.”