Vhi Health and Wellbeing Fund grant awarded to Donegal organisation

Vhi and the Irish Youth Foundations (IYF) have today announced details of the eleven projects awarded grants from the inaugural Vhi Health and Wellbeing Fund. One of the projects is from Donegal - Spraoi agus Spórt Family Centre, Carndonagh.

They received a grant to run a workshop for young people to help them manage anxiety. The workshop will be designed to engage young people aged 12-16 years old living in disadvantaged areas of the county.

The Vhi Health and Wellbeing Fund, which opened for applications in September last year, was designed to fund projects that were seeking to strengthen resilience in young people and help them manage anxiety, with an emphasis on early intervention and prevention work.

The fund was established at a critical time for the youth sector and when research by IYF revealed that three in four youth leaders in Ireland were seeing an increase in the number of young people needing their support.

Non-profit charity organisations who work directly with young people or with adults who surround them located in Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny and Limerick were invited to apply.

A panel of judges made up of experts representing the youth sector and those working with young people around managing anxiety came together to review the applications for the fund with eleven organisations chosen to receive grants.

The judge’s decisions were finalised in recent weeks with grants provided to projects to be carried out in 2021.

John O’Dwyer, chief executive, Vhi said at Vhi, their mission is to help their customers live longer, stronger, healthier lives.

"But we also want our local communities to have the opportunity to achieve this goal too. The community we all live in has become increasingly important in the past year as we’ve all lived through various restrictions, which meant we were confined to our homes and our local area – more so than we would have previously been used to.

“Through this fund we wanted to support young people and help the organisations they engage with to provide the supports that are so critical at the moment to help them navigate this period, strengthen their resilience and manage their anxiety.

"We received so many worthy applications, but the eleven of them really stood out to the panel of judges. We look forward to seeing these ideas delivered in coming months and wish you all the best of luck in doing this.”

Lucy Masterson, CEO, Irish Youth Foundation, added they were delighted to partner with Vhi to launch this fund during such a critical time for the youth sector.

"Research conducted by the IYF last year not only highlighted an urgent need for this kind of support among young people, but a downturn of funding available to deliver meaningful programmes dedicated to mental health.

"The impact of Covid has only exasperated these trends with the damage yet to be fully realised, especially in disadvantaged communities.

"The turnout of applications was fantastic, and I have taken comfort in the knowledge that these vital and often lifesaving programmes will be able to run,” she said.

For more information about the programmes mentioned, visit https://iyf.ie/grants/.