Community inclusion grant
The scheme explained
The scheme was designed to support projects that aim to make Portsmouth a place where all feel welcome with fair opportunities. We invited projects that challenge inequality, advance equity, and celebrate diversity in Portsmouth.
They could be about:
- making facilities more accessible
- attracting a wider group of people
- highlighting unique aspects of a group or community
- providing support to disadvantaged groups of people.
We recognise that there is a lot of valuable work that happens in our communities and a bit of funding can take a project to the next level.
The scheme ties in with the wider equality, diversity and inclusion priority at Portsmouth City Council that looks to bring communities together, to allow for a thriving and diverse Portsmouth.
Further information can be found in the Community Inclusion Grant guide.
Who can apply
Groups or charities who apply for funding had to meet the following criteria to be considered:
- a constitution (or rules)
- a bank account in the name of the organisation with a recent bank statement for evidence
- a policy describing how they will safeguard children, young people and vulnerable adults
- evidence of relevant insurance.
HIVE Portsmouth offered support to groups to help meet the requirements.
Grant recipients
Grants were awarded to the following successful bids:
| Organisation name | Description of Project |
| The New Ground C.I.C | This grant will fund We Rise, a participatory art project which aims to create a platform in Portsmouth for learning-disabled people to make and share large-scale ambitious artwork, develop creative leadership skills and empower the next generation of learning-disabled leaders. This will include empowerment and leadership training together with work opportunities and digital art workshop. These will run for 12 months. |
| The Bivol Trust | The project, called “Abilities for Life”, will come within the remit of the Bivol Trust outreach work and will involve setting up a new group for young adults 25 years and over with learning and associated physical disabilities, including wheelchair users. |
| Portsmouth Down Syndrome Association | Grant will allow the organisation to purchase new furniture for therapy rooms and family room in the new centre. The organisation is growing and there is more demand, so additional furniture is needed for the new spaces to keep providing the support. |
| Portsmouth City of Sanctuary | Grant funds will go towards creation of Welcome Boxes for refugees and asylum seekers arriving in Portsmouth, the boxes include items such as toiletries, confectionary, maps and leaflets about the city and other essential information such as faith groups, emergency medical care and dentists as well as a Vodafone card with 6 months’ credit and details of free English lessons in the area. |
| Tonic Music for Mental Health | The grant will fund 1-1 support sessions to those affected by recent suicides; signposting to specialist support and running a Suicide First Aid training to a group of 20 people. The fundamental aim is to support and empower individuals to create a mutually supportive community network. The project would increase awareness of suicide within the local community. It would provide free easy access to vital information with the aim of reducing stigma; encourage open conversations about suicide; provide support for those experiencing suicidal thoughts as well as those around them; equip those involved with the knowledge and confidence to support others. |
| Sustrans | Sustrans’ Welcome Wheels project works in partnership to address all these issues. With the right support and equipment, refugees and asylum seekers will develop the skills and confidence to navigate the city by bicycle. This will enable them to get around independently, for minimal cost, and to reach the places they want and need to get to, provide benefits to people’s mental and physical health, help to give people more choice, improve people’s access to shops which are more affordable and stock international foods, open more volunteering and employment options – enabling people to choose the opportunities they really want to pursue, rather than those they can get to. |
| Downtown Pompey C.I.C | LGBTQ+ youth groups to New Theatre Royal Portsmouth to engage in two-day creative workshops to develop their own autobiographical short stories for a podcast series and radio show. Working with local LGBTQ+ writers participants will enhance their skills of writing and performing and develop holistic skills around emotional awareness/empathy and develop a local cultural capital through meaningful interactions with adult LGBTQ+ role models. The overall aim of amplifying LGBTQ+ voices in Portsmouth developing empathy in the city. |
| The Parenting Network C.I.C | The grant will be used to fund ‘Dad’s Toolkit’, Dadzclub perinatal mental health support project delivered in partnership with Talking Change. Monthly sessions are provided for dads/father figures in Portsmouth, to come together, discuss and share experiences and develop a supportive, inclusive community. |
| Portsmouth Black History Month Committee | Exhibition of photography – the subjects will be individuals from black minority ethnic groups who have made history and had a positive impact on Portsmouth, such as the first black Lady Mayoress, the first black councillors and sportsmen and charity workers. Event will take place in Aspex gallery. |
| Toucan Diversity | Grant will allow to provide two free of charge sessions of CPD accredited disability equality training in Portsmouth, for 40 attendees from across the city. From history, biases to reasonable adjustments and disability etiquette. |
| Medaille Trust | Grant will go towards funding Haven Group – safe space, women-only group providing support to victims of exploitation, human trafficking, gender abuse and other adverse forms of abuse. The group exists since 2021. it works with a number of south east coast organisations and organises various workshops and talks. 99% attendees are from marginalised ethnic groups. |
| Fighting with Pride | Charity supporting LGBTQ+ veterans. The project will be based in Portsmouth. The project is to provide social support to Portsmouth based LGBT+ Veterans through the difficult period of the LGBT Veterans’ Independent Review (IR), Chaired by Lord Etherton PC, QC. The IR has ‘called for evidence’ into the service and experience of LGBT veterans who served in the Armed Forces between 1967 to 2000. The review is currently underway. |
| Elizabeth Foundation | The grant funds will be used to repurpose facilities at its family centre in Portsmouth, to provide a specialist sensory room which will allow the charity to better include and support deaf children with additional disabilities/learning conditions including ADHD & Asperger’s. |
| Follow Your Dreamz Performing Arts C.I.C | This is an all-inclusive performing arts, drama and dance school operating in Paulsgrove for the last five years. The grant will fund hot nutritious meals to 50 children in the Paulsgrove area per week for 10 weeks, this will also help with the cost of living increase. |
| Noah Mapalo Help Center | The grant will be used to fund an event which will aim to promote, celebrate and raise cultural awareness, diversity by bringing people together around sharing stories and experiences from different cultural background, food and dance. Our event is simply a social gathering to not only bring people together but learn from each other’s cultural differences to promote inclusiveness and celebrate one another to make a stronger community. |
| SHIFT (Self Help Inspiring Forward Thinking) | SHIFT is a peer-led organisation where anyone who identifies as suffering with mental and/or emotional distress is welcome. The organisation aims to combat social exclusion and, through advocacy and peer support, we help our members with the understandably wide range of issues they face. The grant will allow the group to run for at least another three months. |
| Pamodzi Creatives | The #whoinspiresyou project will engage young people of colour from Admiral Lord Nelson School and introduce them to local inspirational people of colour through planned social events hosted by Natty Jerk restaurant at a subsidised rate. A podcast series exploring and celebrating young people’s lived experience within the city will also be developed. |
| Viva Gymnastics Club | The grant will be used to fund The Vivability Program; the expansion of gymnastic sessions to support children with special education needs, learning, behavioural and physical impairments to improve mental and physical wellbeing – and the support of sensory integration – through sport. The aim is to equip the gym so that we are able to have more gymnasts with SEND and be able to support each and every one of them in every way they need. |
| MSLipreading | This project will cover the elements needed so that the participants are enabled to manage their hearing loss in a hearing world. The sessions will cover the Theory of Lipreading, coping and communication, tactics for when in difficult situations, confidence raising and information on where other deaf support is available and the equipment that is available to support deafened people. The project will be delivered in a safe environment by someone qualified to work with deafened people. |
| Minority Women’s Group in Portsmouth | The grant funding will be used to run to run a project in Portsmouth, which will empower a black minority ethnic group, especially the disadvantaged group, boost their self-esteem, promote independence, health and wellbeing. The lack of communication between ethnic minority groups and community groups can create fear and lack of confidence, women are experiencing harmful practice and forced marriage. |
| 432 NO-MADS’S CIC | The grant will be used to fund a project called Dancing through Rains of Fire. This is a dance collaboration with local Iranian women, a local dance group called Templeton Street dance, a local videographer Sam Birmingham with poetry and music curated by Majid Dhana and Rhisky Patel. The main dance will be performed by an Iranian refugee, a young person who fled Iran because of human rights abuses and religious persecution. |
| Portsmouth Gambian Association | The grant funding will be used to showcase a lone launch event as part of a whole programme of activities, to explain our culture, tradition, with the aim to break cultural barriers within Portsmouth. The event will demonstrate some of the cultural differences such as back home in Gambia. The project is aimed at fostering community cohesion through breaking traditional and cultural barriers. |
| HOPE Portsmouth | The funding will be used for a series of Makaton Signing and Symbols training days during Jan-Mar 2023 for Portsmouth residents, to support spoken language so children and adults with communication and learning difficulties can take a more active part in life, feel less isolated, more included in their communities, and encouraged to prosper in life. |
| Work Better Innovations | The grant will fund an opportunity to invite ethnic minority families who may be struggling silently in their homes for a hot meal and a friendly chat, in a warm and welcoming atmosphere. Additionally, we will invite speakers from the NHS and other service providers to speak to the group on general health and well-being issues. These four events will link in with health support services to enable vulnerable migrants to discuss health inequalities. |
| Ghanaian Association of Portsmouth | Run a summer cultural dance as part of activity teaching Ghanaian cultural dance to diverse group of children. it is anticipated that a group will emerge to form a multi-cultural dance group that can visit schools to showcase cultural dance. |
| Creatful C.I.C | This grant will provide funds to run arts and crafts workshops in collaboration with the charity Advance which supports women and girls affected by domestic abuse and those who are caught up in the criminal justice system. |
| Endometrosis South Coast | This grant will fund EDI training for staff and volunteers at Endo South Coast. This is to ensure the support offered is as inclusive as possible as not everyone with endo identifies as a woman, these people are often completely neglected in being recognised in educational handouts, posts on social media, and in support forums. This will also benefit medical staff, decision makers and business owners who can benefit from the training through cross-organisational working. |
| Spirit in Sport | The grant funding will be used to run table tennis session to engage with the community, these will be inclusive to people with disabilities. The aim of the project is for people to use table tennis to make themselves more active, to get girls and women playing sport, and to mitigate loneliness by offering opportunities for social cohesion. |
| Portsea Men’s Shed | The shed provides opportunity for men to meet up and avoid isolation by joining this ‘workshop’ and carrying out mostly craft projects either for their personal use or for helping the local community. The grant will be used to fund better materials to carry out projects, such as their recent project welcoming refugees and asylum seekers to carry out garden furniture projects. |
| The Grateful Arts Club | The grant funding will be used to fund Women in Art: A series of talks, discussions, workshops and an exhibition to celebrate and amplify the voices of local artists who identify as women in art. This will be taking place for International Women’s Day. |
| Buckland Community Centre | This grant will fund free craft session to under 18s for 12 to 14 weeks beginning 9 January 2023 each week we will deliver a craft that is associated to a country or culture to show how things are made and to open discussion about the country, their beliefs and cultures. Those delivering the craft session will have lived in experience. |
| POOW Media Ltd | This grant will fund a podcast show with URBOND (local equality and community cohesion charity). The topics that will be covered in the upcoming shows will be addressing racial issues in the community, inclusion, current financial hardships and address issues with youth crime in the city, this will include decision makers in the city, hard to reach communities, council officers and councillors and local leaders to bridge the gap in knowledge. |
| Minstead Trust | The grant will fund new equipment for the Lily & Lime Cafe in Portsmouth Central Library. The cafe offers employability and work experience opportunities to people with learning disabilities living in Portsmouth and is part of Minstead Trust who support disabled people in Portsmouth. |
| Community Kettle C.I.C | The grant will be used to fund an event which is a one term celebration of the soft launch of Community Kettle Intergenerational Hub in north of the city. It is the opportunity to introduce and gather public support and opinion on the hub and next time, including furnishings etc. |
