Community development

The Lanarkshire LEADER programme has made its first funding award.

The programme opened in late 2016 and now the LEADER Local Action Group have made a grant offer of £18,220 to Lanark-based award-winning social enterprise CCI Scotland.

With the funding, CCI will carry out feasibility and business planning on a number of potential social enterprise ventures.

The European Network for Rural Development (ENRD) has produced a publication about migrant and refugee integration projects across Europe.

A new five-year project will help develop rural communities that are older-people-friendly.

The Rural Wisdom project is a partnership between Outside the Box, Volunteering Matters Cymru and National Development Team for inclusion. The project has recently been awarded funding of £975,370 from the Big Lottery Fund.

First Minister Nicola Sturgoen has announced £29 million of funding for community and third sector projects that try new ways to tackle poverty and improve people's lives.

The funding over the next two years supports the Fairer Scotland Action Plan, which was published in October 2016.

WAT IF? (Woolfords, Auchengray and Tarbrax Improvement Foundation) is launching four new funds which could provide up to £19,000 directly to the local community each year.

The development trust, established in 2012 by residents to manage community benefit funds from nearby windfarm developments, has focused their new programme of grant schemes on addressing access to services and facilities such as transport and education.

Tyne Esk LEADER approved six projects in their first round of funding.

A total of £267,000 was awarded to the six projects, which include community, farm diversification and enterprise projects. The Tyne Esk LEADER programme covers Mid- and East Lothian.

You can find information on the approved projects below.

And you can find out more about the Jerba Campervans' project in their Case Study.

Highland LEADER are encouraging potential applicants to come forward with their project ideas.

Funding of over £6.6 million is available for projects that will benefit communities through the area's LEADER programme, which covers the mainland Highlands, the Small Isles and Skye but excludes the city of Inverness and the Cairngorms National Park.

Dumfries and Galloway LEADER Local Action Group are delighted, in a backdrop of change, to have committed £867,041.10 to a mix of community, enterprise and farm diversification projects since March 2016.