Grassroots Community Projects
- Set Up Community Hubs
Community Hubs are lifelines. They provide vital services for everyone from parents and toddlers, young adults looking for work, to older people escaping loneliness and isolation. They are a space for new business start-ups or a home for voluntary organisations providing everything from food to advice and support.
It was a priority for me to make sure I supported such vital places. I’ve made sure money from North of Tyne Combined Authority has been put to good use all over the area such as:
Taken together, the Newcastle and North Tyneside funded programmes are supporting around 2,500 residents to access volunteering and community-based support, building the capacity of around 100 community organisations and have led to the indirect safeguarding of 40 jobs. Northumberland’s programme includes capital allocations for four main buildings to be refurbished and brought back into community use, a small grants programme, and training and support offer for VCSE organisations. This programme has resulted in the creation of 10 jobs and seventeen businesses supported.
We’ve also supported Newcastle United Foundations NUCASTLE, a world class community hub. It will support 12,000 young people a year to enter the world of work. There’s help to get fit, get active, and to find jobs. It includes inspirational STEM learning, apprenticeships and career paths, NU Futures will tackle wealth inequalities issues, low productivity and exclusion for the next generation. And outreach work all across the region – up to Berwick, across North Tyneside and right the way out across the Tyne Valley.