• North East Edinburgh Foodbank
• Hermitage Park School Association
• YMCA
• Citadel
• Pilmeny Development Project
• Edinburgh Food Social
• Leith DIY Skatepark
• Leith Community Centre Association
• Building Bridges
• St Mary’s Leith Parent Council

• Bright Light
• Multi-Cultural Family Base
• ELREC
• Creative Electric
• Projekt 42
• Safer by Sound
• Feniks Counselling
• SHE Scotland
• Men of Leiths Shed
• Dr Bell’s Family Centre

North East Edinburgh Foodbank

Amount requested: £5000

We currently provide long-life food and toiletries to clients. But we would also like to provide fresh food. We would use funding to purchase vouchers from Scotmid. We will match vouchers to clients by box size. Single and couple boxes will receive £2 of vouchers, small and large families £5 worth of vouchers. Scotmid are happy to waive profit to provide extra vouchers. The opportunity to obtain fresh food will improve clients’ diet and allow clients to exist ‘beyond the world of tinned produce’ that we currently provide.

Back to Top

Hermitage Park School Association

Amount requested: £3250

‘Hermie Bully Busters’ is a student empowerment programme designed to tackle the loneliness/isolation associated with bullying, something 61% of Scottish school children have experienced. Using a Children’s Rights approach, P7s will be empowered to become anti-bullying activists, and supported to design a ‘kindness kit’ which will then be shared with all Leith Primary Schools. The programme will give children the tools to protect their own/each other’s rights and to build positive relationships. The grant will pay facilitators to lead workshops and fund a Scottish Parliament visit. The beneficiaries will be P7 pupils from across Leith Primary Schools as the programme is rolled out.

Back to Top

YMCA

Amount requested: £5000

Qualifies for boost vote

Our free, expanded holiday playscheme will run 4 weeks of summer and 1 week in October. Open to primary aged children in Leith who are identified by support agencies as experiencing disadvantage, we will partner with other agencies to provide a variety of activities whilst addressing holiday hunger.

To prevent hunger, each weekday we will offer 30 children a nutritious breakfast and entire family a lunch, alongside a four hour play session. Children will build confidence and improve social skills by participating in art and science activities, alongside sports, such as football and basketball, to improve physical and mental health.

Back to Top

Citadel

Amount requested: £4990

The Games Club will fight loneliness by giving socially isolated young people aged 11 to 18 an opportunity to attend a youth club specially designed for them. For young people who spend a lot of time gaming at home on their own, the Games Club will enable them to meet peers with similar interests and develop face-to-face friendships. They will also be able to take part in other activities, including trips to places like escape rooms and games conventions, and workshops such as 3-D printing and coding, which will help them to learn new skills and consider potential career options.

Back to Top

Pilmeny Development Project

Amount requested: £3870

Our project will fight loneliness and reduce social isolation experienced by older people in Leith, through the development of a volunteer home visiting service for 25-30 housebound older people; by bringing 150 socially isolated older people together to a large event (as part of UN Day of the Older Person 2020);  as well as connecting a minimum of 50 lonely older people into community activities, opportunities which will enhance their quality of life, in line with our own research and the NE Locality priority to address Social lsolation and Loneliness.

Back to Top

Edinburgh Food Social

Amount requested: £2846

Edinburgh Food Social will deliver an intergenerational food project that will see groups of young people from Leith Academy spend time with older Leithers to share time, stories and meals.
As social media take over, isolation is just as current an issue for young people as it is for those older and living alone.
This project is designed to teach each age group about the challenges of the other whilst sharing the one thing that brings us all together, a good meal.
Growing, cooking and eating will all feature, with outcomes including: improved health through nutritious meals; increased cookery skills; and heightened well-being through time spent outdoors and with others.

Back to Top

Leith DIY Skatepark

Amount requested: £4500

Leith DIY Skateparks aim to fix up the ramp after the winter and to widen and diversify the user base of the facility off 165 Leith Walk, by reaching out to people not typically exposed to Skateboarding, putting on beginner events, and holding lessons/ classes and sessions for individual groups. This is a great way for young people to meet and build friendships – addressing loneliness in the community. Organised events will include BBQs and sharing of food, free of charge.

Young people today (particularly young and vulnerable) spend increasing amounts of time on social media, and the negative impacts (loneliness and low self-confidence) are well documented. This facility is free and open to all, offering a positive alternative where people can get together and enjoy themselves.

Back to Top

Leith Community Centre Association

Amount requested: £4993

The Good Neighbours Social Club will provide Leith residents experiencing loneliness and/or hunger with a nutritious hot meal, as well as opportunities to try out new activities and make new friends. A sessional outreach worker will publicise the club, visiting local community and faith groups, doctors’ surgeries, libraries, housing associations etc, and organise sessions particularly welcoming newcomers to the area, single parents, LGBTQ people, older people, people with disabilities, and refugees. As well as sharing a meal, club members will be able to try out a range of social activities, including crafts, music and sports, and be sign-posted to other sources of help.

Back to Top

Building Bridges

Amount requested: £3300

There is a risk in Edinburgh of creating ‘Parallel Communities’ with little contact or engagement between different groups. Our activities will bring people together from the diverse communities in Leith, especially those from ethic minority groups, to form new connections with one another.

Building Bridges would use funding to put on Befriending evenings of multicultural music, dance and story sharing events with food, and conversations. These events will provide an opportunity to hear stories from the ethnic minority communities about what Leith means to them and their journey to Edinburgh, with the aim of raising cultural awareness and building friendships between the new Leith communities living side by side, to shape intercultural neighbourhoods.

Back to Top

St Mary’s Leith Parent Council

Amount requested: £1600

To combat loneliness and social isolation, we want to create social connections between St. Mary’s Leith Primary pupils and older residents of Leith. P6 pupils will visit and talk with older residents of the sheltered housing complex at Manderston Court and will find out what their favourite street games were. Their memories will be recorded and will inform the design of games at St Mary’s. We will use funds to install painted traditional street games onto the plain tarmac of the school playground, and aim to reduce social isolation amongst St Mary’s pupils by involving all in fun and active games.

Back to Top

Bright Light

Amount requested: £4300

‘Linked Up In Leith’ will enable, empower, and support young carers living in Leith. We will provide vital practical life-skills coaching that will help young people address/manage their feelings of loneliness and isolation, and build their capacity to self-manage/overcome life challenges, now and in the future. Our coaching will give each young person practical tools and confidence to identify and build on their strengths, to set their goals and achieve them. Bright Light will deliver a programme of group coaching sessions, working in partnership with other grassroots agencies in Leith, helping each young carer to thrive, develop confidence, and the practical life-skills tools to shape for themselves a better future.

Back to Top

Multi-Cultural Family Base

Amount requested: £5000

Qualifies for boost vote

We support families building a new life in Scotland. Low income, lack of language and friends means they struggle with food poverty and lack opportunities to build social networks.

We will run events to combat loneliness and food poverty.

1. Two food, dance and music based family gatherings at South Leith Parish Church Halls with food take-away options. Run in Partnership with World Kitchen in Leith and in consultation with local foodbanks.
2. A day at Vogrie Park during the summer holidays, incorporating a barbeque and family activities – a chance for families to socialise and share food. Transport provided.

Back to Top

Edinburgh & Lothians Regional Equality Council (ELREC)

Amount requested: £5000

Qualifies for boost vote

‘Lunch and a story in Leith’
To be held in a community space in Leith, this will be a program of 3-hour sessions of learning about nutrition, healthy diets, basic cooking tips, cuisine from different countries, followed by listening and reflecting on a story, and finishing by having healthy lunch together while listening to music. These sessions are open to families and single people, men and women.

Aiming to tackle hunger and loneliness, the program will run one day a week (Wednesdays or Thursdays), starting from May 2020, for 33 weeks. Each participant will receive a booklet consisting of all the information presented and recipes of some simple healthy multicultural food.

Back to Top

Creative Electric

Amount requested: £5000

Creative Electric will provide supported, creative opportunities for those experiencing social anxiety and/or isolation through:

Weekly arts drop-ins: workshops that explore positive mental health and anxiety reduction through the arts. Taster sessions will include calming jars, creative writing, breath therapy and autobiographical performance.

Bi-monthly arts celebration nights: an opportunity to meet new people & be entertained in a relaxed, supported environment. Participants of the arts drop-ins will have the opportunity to share their work – this can include displaying artwork, playing music or having professional actors read your short play.

Celebration nights will be programmed by the local community.

Back to Top

Projekt 42

Amount requested: £3900

Having successfully delivered a range of free fitness and yoga activities to the over-55s, we have identified that many live with long term health conditions that create barriers to physical activity. To fight loneliness we are seeking a grant which will allow us to offer one to one ‘Health MOT’s’ for hard-to-reach individuals living with long term health conditions. This will involve them working with a specialist Level 3 GP referral coach and completing a series of simple base-line fitness tests, giving them confidence, reassurance and the boost they need to feel able take part in group exercise classes.

Back to Top

Safer by Sound

Amount requested: £1000

Our project is to have two outdoor concerts in the summer at Leith Community Croft (Leith Links) for those who may not have the opportunity to go to Edinburgh/Fringe festival events. Our concerts will bring the community together in a relaxed family atmosphere, through performance, and sharing food.

Crops and Pots will supply food (free to attendees), the space and the electricity. Safer by Sound will supply the PA system and organise the artists. Many of our artists and participants have disabilities, suffer from mental health (isolation) issues, are in recovery from substance abuse, or simply cannot afford music tuition often due to unemployment.

Back to Top

Feniks Counselling

Amount requested: £3808

Qualifies for boost vote

We would like to support social and cultural integration of the isolated over-50 year old Polish people with other ethnic groups of Leith. In partnership with local community organisations, we will organise three cuisine exchange classes, art workshops promoting well-being in the advanced age, and a meeting exploring memories of growing up in different cultures. We will also award the participants with a historic trip to Highlands. We believe that the proposed activities will support the cultural exchange and integration of the Polish minority with the local community in Leith which will help all participants to feel less lonely.

Back to Top

SHE Scotland

Amount requested: £940

SHE Voices will partner Citadel Youth Centre, Womens Aid, Sikh San Jog and LGBT aiming to host a unique event for international Womens Day in Leith. SHE Voices would raise the issue of domestic abuse, control and the isolation of victims. SHE Voices will include a performance of a 1 woman play entitled Object of Desire which highlights the issue of domestic abuse and the misuse of power within relationships. This play is part of a range of workshops and would increase confidence, reduce isolation and connect communities. Participation would be supported with childcare. 1 in 4 women will experience domestic abuse at some point in their lives and it accounts for between 16% and 25 % of all recorded crimes.

Back to Top

The Men Of Leith Men’s Shed

Amount requested: £640

A shed for The Men’s Shed
We are an organisation for men to get together and support each other, helping to combat loneliness and isolation through various activities. We are looking to secure funding to purchase a storage shed so that we can store regular donations of wood and useful materials. We complete projects for many local charities and community groups utilising reclaimed materials where possible, therefore keeping costs to a minimum, reducing waste and helping to protect our environment. A storage facility will allow more men to become engaged with us in these activities.

Back to Top

Dr Bell’s Family Centre

Amount requested: £4315

Dr Bell’s Family Centre is seeking funding towards a holiday activity programme which will run during easter, summer and the October breaks in 2020 for families in Leith with young children who are facing disadvantage and challenging circumstances.

We will deliver a wide range of centre-based activities including community breakfasts, lunches and family cooking workshops as well as local outings and picnics. We would also use the funds for buying food and resources for activities, and contribute towards entrance fees and travel costs to take our families on local outings.

Back to Top