Local charities benefit from Halifax Foundation

North West Play Resource Centre has been allocated £10,000 towards choir costs for those suffering with mental health problems, Sole Purpose, £10,000 towards a theatre production of ‘Blinkered’ addressing suicide and mental ill health and Zest Healing the Hurt, £10,000 for an emotional health programme delivered in schools including understanding suicide and self-harm.

The Halifax Foundation for Northern Ireland has given out almost £113,000 in grants to 12 charities working hard to improve the mental health of people in Northern Ireland.

The Foundation’s ‘Our Community in Mind’ mental health initiative received 177 applications from charities and whittled it down to 12 organisations working in key areas such as suicide and self-harm, binge eating, young people’s issues, prisoners and post-natal and ante natal depression.

As well as giving £112,847 in grants to ‘Our Community in Mind’, the Foundation today also announced that it was donating more than £265,000 to 73 charities, which means that it has allocated a total of £530,000 in community grants to 135 charities since the start of this year.

Brenda McMullan, Executive Director of the Halifax Foundation for Northern Ireland, said the Our Community in Mind initiative was a response to the demand for better mental health services in Northern Ireland.

She said: “Mental health charities in Northern Ireland do a fantastic job supporting our severely stretched Health Service. Over the years, the number of organisations in this area applying to us for funding has increased dramatically so we decided to launch our ‘Community in Mind’ initiative.

“The Foundation has been overwhelmed by the number of applications and by the high quality of applications for funding. In the end, we had to choose 12 very high quality applicants doing fantastic work tackling the scourge of mental health problems in the community.”