Neighbourhood Care Scheme launches appeal to win National Lottery Award
The Neighbourhood Care Scheme has reached the semi-finals of the National Lottery Awards in the Best Voluntary/Charity Project category in association with Woman Magazine, and is now appealing to members of the public to vote for it so that it can proceed to the finals.
If the scheme reaches the finals, it has a chance to win £2000 and be featured on national TV. The National Lottery Awards are an annual search to find the UK’s favourite Lottery-funded projects.
The NCS is the only Sussex project in its category to reach the semi-finals.
The NCS Project Leader, Sean de Podesta, says:
The success of the Neighbourhood Care Scheme is a good news story. Despite all the press stories about neighbours from hell, good neighbourliness is alive and well – at least in Brighton & Hove! We believe that generally people care about their neighbours and that neighbourly good will is a precious resource that can help to enhance the lives of many isolated people.
Simple things really can make a big difference to people’s lives. We are delighted to have reached the semi-finals of the National Lottery Awards. We hope that the public will get behind us and vote for us as it would be fantastic to get wider recognition of the positive possibilities of good neighbourliness. In these difficult economic times, winning the Award would definitely help us to keep our work going in the future. The £2000 prize would help us to recruit a further 20 volunteers.
Good News for 2010!
2009 was another record year for the scheme in terms of the number of people we helped and the number of volunteers we recruited. Thanks to a grant of from The Hardship Fund (a government fund administered by the Community Development Foundation), which made up our budget shortfall for the first nine months of 2010, it looks like the NCS is secure until March 2011.
The NCS is a good neighbour scheme that supports older people, people with physical disabilities and carers by recruiting local volunteers to support them in a variety of ways.
The scheme operates in nine neighbourhoods of Brighton & Hove, embracing a population of around 100,000 people.
In the year up to March 31st 2009, we have enabled 175 volunteers to make 3911 visits and provide more than 7100 hours of direct neighbourly support to 208 individuals. The small things our volunteers do can make a real difference to people's lives.
Click here to read a brief report of our work in 2008-2009.
The Neighbourhood Care Scheme is committed to the value of good neighbourlyness.
