Lottery boost for organisation that helps women manage money

The small grants programme has awarded a grant to Your Money Garden as part of a cash roll-out of 287,974 to 35 groups across Northern Ireland.

Awards for All offers community, voluntary and statutory groups the chance to apply for small grants of between 500 and 10,000 that will have a big impact on local communities and the lives of people most in need.

Your Money Garden - an organisation that runs education courses on managing and budgeting money effectively for local people in the Newtownabbey, Belfast and surrounding areas - has been given a grant of 9,580.

The organisation, which is located just off the Jordanstown Road, will use the grant to run money management courses for women who are unemployed, on benefits, or are in low paid jobs.

Co-ordinator Ellen Finlay explained that the support the project offers is particularly important during the current period of recession.

“The grant is being used to help run money managing and budgeting courses for women who come from communities where there are high levels of disadvantage and deprivation,” said Ellen.

“Some of the women come from disadvantaged communities and don’t have jobs, or they are living on very low incomes. We’re going through a recession and money is tighter than ever so we want to show people that they can manage without much money without getting into the stress of debt.

“We get people coming along who are dealing with stress and illness as a knock-on effect of their finances which are escalating out of control.

Ellen continued: “The course will help these women feel more confident to deal with money, and will show them what they are entitled to in terms of benefits and the minimum wage.

“We will show them that by making a few practical changes they can really help lift the burden of debt. We will also help them understand the implications of getting involved with different types of debt such as doorstep lenders or pay day loan services.

“We’ve started to run the courses already and they have been really successful. We actually had one participant who came along and took part in the training who did not realise how much money she was spending.

“She said that if she had not taken the course she would have ended up in a lot of debt, but it had helped her re-assess her finances and make a lot of savings.”

Frank Hewitt, Big Lottery Fund NI Chair, said: “The Big Lottery Fund’s NI Awards for All programme funds health, education, environment and community projects that help people bring about positive change in their lives, improve health and well-being, develop skills and create safer communities.”

“The application process is simple and accessible and shall remain so, making it easy for applicants to successfully apply for small pots of funding that can have such a big impact on local communities and lives.”

Application forms and guidance notes are available to download at www.awardsforall.org.uk.

For more details ring Tel: 028 9055 1455, or email: [email protected]