The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Campbell unveils £2m for Highland group projects
● Cabinet secretary announces funding during Inverness visit
Scotland’s communities secretary visited Inverness yesterday to announce £2 million of funding for group projects in the Highlands. The funding will benefit 22 community group projects across the north, targeting issues relating to inequality and poverty, while supporting inclusion within the local community.
Yesterday, Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government Aileen Campbell visited pupils at Charleston Academy in Inverness who have been involved in the Growing2gether mentoring project, aimed at nursery children who require additional support.
The project allows pupils to work towards an SVQ, enhancing their achievements throughout their school careers as well as making a difference in the community.
Ms Campbell said: “Local communities understand what works in their own areas and this funding will enable them to help create a more equal Scotland.
“It’s been tremendous to come here to Charleston Academy to see and hear from the young people who are part of the mentoring programme and it is good to be here to announce the availability of £2m for organisations across the Highlands and islands to benefit in many different ways.
“Underpinning all of that is the ability to help people to grow and to flourish to support different communities in the way which they need to be supported.
“To hear from the young people themselves, what they have benefited from around the mentoring project, is absolutely phenomenal.
“It is a really simple project impact is huge.”
Diana Whitmore, director of Ecologia Youth Trust who deliver the Growing2gether project, said: “We work in partnership with the secondary schools and our programme is based on positive psychology, which is a way of but the approaching young people where you see the best from them and you get the best back.
“Through the experience of mentoring, young people have lived experience of how much they can make a difference in someone else’s life and how they can engage in a really positive way with their community.”
The funding is set to span across Highlands and islands projects relating to arts and heritage, local history and environment, creative writing and music and dance.
Fourth-year pupil Jake Weston, who is a graduate of the Growing2gether project, said: “The boy I worked with initially was very quiet.
“He wouldn’t speak to teachers . . . but at the end he was very openly speaking to new staff coming in.
“It was a very rewarding experience to feel as if I had made a difference to someone else’s life.”