Mayor’s funding boosts jobs, skills and community facilities

Figures released by Mayor Richard Parker have revealed how the lives of over 800,000 residents across the West Midlands have been improved thanks to funding for more than 400 community led projects.

The projects shared £13 million from the Inclusive Communities Fund and the Community Environment Fund to host hundreds of events that brought communities together.

The funding was also used to run thousands of hours of free activities to get people more active and improve their health and wellbeing.

Local facilities like community centres, sports pitches and performing arts centres have also been upgraded and modernised and natures sites created or enhanced.

The grants of between £500 and £300,000 have helped create hundreds of jobs and train thousands of people, giving them new skills to get a job or volunteering role.

An evaluation, published this week, has highlighted the far-reaching benefits of the two funds. These include:

• 635,000 people taking part in thousands of hours of free arts, sports or nature-based events and activities or benefitting from better facilities where they live
• 700 jobs created
• 4,000 people gaining a new qualification or learning new job skills including sustainability, and climate literacy and advocacy courses
• 2,000 new volunteers recruited
• 2,300 tree saplings planted
• 160,000 more people now living within a 15-minute walk of an improved nature site

The Mayor visited Our Community Foundation in Alum Rock in Birmingham yesterday (Wednesday, 28th May) to find out how it is supporting his plans to tackle youth unemployment using £75,000 from the Inclusive Communities Fund to run more sports and mentoring programmes.

Richard Parker, Mayor of the West Midlands, with Our Commnuity Foundation apprentice Haider Bashir, youth worker Tiana Barnes, founder and chief executive Basharat Dad, youth mentor Teyaba Kauser and youth development officer Zain Khan.

The Mayor said: “We’ve put £13 million into 400 grassroots groups. That’s an astonishing 800,000 lives improved with better physical and mental wellbeing, new skills, improved job prospects, and brighter futures.

“I saw for myself how Our Community Foundation is tapping into the unique ability of sport to bring young people together in East Birmingham and set them on exciting new paths in life.

“My Growth for Everyone plan is about making sure no one is left behind and that’s why we are breaking down barriers to create real opportunities, better life chances, and healthier, more sustainable communities for generations to come.”

Our Community Foundation, based at Naseby Community Centre in Alum Rock, was set up in 2006 in response to a lack of opportunities for young people to take part in sport, extra-curricular education, and to help them find jobs and training.

Since then the charity has supported 10,500 young people and their families in an area of the city with high levels of youth unemployment and disengaged young people.

The money from the Inclusive Communities Fund has opened up sports activities to another 150 local young people, helped the foundation employ a new mentor and take on a sports coordinator apprentice, and draw up a longer-term strategy to support more local families.

Basharat Dad, founder and chief executive of Our Community Foundation, said: “Our inclusive communities funding was a game-changer. It allowed us to expand our impact on the ground while investing in the systems, people, and strategy needed for long-term change.

“It didn’t just fund our activities, it helped us build the foundations for the future through our youth and community-led strategic framework that will guide us through 2025 to 2030.”

The Inclusive Communities Fund and the Community Environment Fund were part of the West Midlands Combined Authority’s (WMCA) Commonwealth Games Legacy Enhancement Fund with money from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government.

The legacy fund was set up to pay for projects that ensured the positive and long-lasting legacy from the Birmingham 2022 Games would be felt right across the region.

Read more about the Commonwealth Games Legacy Enhancement Fund on the WMCA website.