Six Derry community projects awarded £388,000 in grants

In Your Space Circus, Menopause Project, Pink Ladies Cancer Support Group, ARC Fitness Addiction Recovery Coaching, the Londonderry YMCA and Derg, in Strabane, have all been awarded grants. The local projects aim to improve mental wellbeing across a broad range of communities – including women with learning disabilities, older people and cancer survivors.

The Ideas Fund is a grants scheme, run by the British Science Association and funded by Wellcome, that brings together people who have an idea about how to improve the mental wellbeing of their local community with researchers who can help turn their idea into a reality. Since its launch in 2021, The Ideas Fund has awarded £3.28 million in grants to over 70 community projects across four geographical areas of the UK: North West Northern Ireland, the Scottish Highlands and Islands, Oldham and Hull. 

The Ideas Fund is committed to connecting communities with researchers, as well as diversifying the voices within health research. During the development of the Fund, it became clear that a targeted, place-based approach would be the most efficient way of achieving this goal by working in just four areas to test and learn. The Ideas Fund began working in these four locations in early 2021 and it wants to continue to explore how its approach can grow in these places, building on what has been learned.

The first round of funding in July 2021 saw eight projects in North West Northern Ireland receive £343,000 in grants. In the second round of funding announced today, a further six projects in the region have received funding totaling £388,000 to develop and deliver projects that address local mental wellbeing concerns.

In Your Space Circus, a charity based in Derry, will use its £32,960 grant from The Ideas Fund to deliver circus skills workshops to older people in the city. From juggling to hula hooping, the workshops will aim to build older participants’ confidence, communication skills, physical skills and improve their mental wellbeing through a greater sense of social inclusion.

Kate Mitchell, Circus Education Director at In Your Space Circus, said: “We are delighted to be a recipient of The Idea's Fund grant. We are excited at the doors that it is going to open to engage with older people in our community and develop meaningful work that will impact our community in such a positive way. We are grateful to the British Science Association and Wellcome Trust for this award.”

Dr Nick McCaffery, Independent Researcher at In Your Space Circus, said “When I heard that our application was successful, I was very excited. This project will not only enable us to deliver some amazing social circus workshops to people who would not necessarily be able to access them, but it will also enable us to really understand how doing circus can have enormous impacts on physical and mental wellbeing. Having a better understanding of how circus works here will not only be useful locally, it will also have an impact on similar projects around the world.”

Projects receive support from a dedicated local Development Coordinator at every stage of their journey, from grant application through to project delivery and evaluation.

Roisin McLaughlin, The Ideas Fund Development Coordinator for North West Northern Ireland, said: “We are delighted for the groups in the Derry and Strabane area as they embark on delivering their Ideas Fund projects. The Ideas Fund is a new and different way to support communities to work with researchers on ideas around mental wellbeing. This second round of funding has been a great opportunity for communities and researchers to come together to develop an impactful partnership, build new skills and address mental wellbeing challenges within our area. We are excited to support communities with their researchers to bring their ideas to life.”

For more information about The Ideas Fund, visit theideasfund.org or follow @TheIdeasFund on social media.