Grant recipients announced for strand of Empowering Dementia Friendly Communities Fund
Five projects have been awarded funding to support the growth of Dementia-Friendly communities in Scotland through one strand of the Empowering Dementia Friendly Communities Fund.
A partnership between the Scottish Government and Age Scotland’s About Dementia project, the fund will support the development of Meeting Centres and dementia-friendly communities across the country between 2022 and 2023. The initial round of funding focused specifically on empowering dementia-friendly communities, with a total of £166,632 made available for distribution through this strand.
The application process was highly competitive, with the fund receiving 19 applications requesting a total of £906,579. In an innovative approach, applications were assessed by About Dementia staff alongside a ‘lived experience panel’ consisting of people living with dementia and unpaid carers.
The five successfully funded projects are: Forget Me Not Club (Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City), Scottish Ballet (Pollokshields East, Glasgow), Capital Theatres (Edinburgh), Dementia Friendly East Lothian (Musselburgh area, Dunbar, and East Linton) and Eric Liddell Community (Edinburgh). These projects will join the upcoming Dementia Friendly Community Learning and Mentoring Network alongside aspiring and current Dementia Friendly Communities across the country.
Kevin Stewart, Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care, said:
"Our funding partnership with Age Scotland was introduced to support and enhance dementia friendly communities activity across Scotland.
"I am delighted to see investment reaching local communities and look forward to hearing about how it’s supporting people with dementia and their families."
Kainde Manji, Head of Dementia at Age Scotland, added:
“We were delighted to receive so much interest for this fund and to be able to support such ground-breaking work. The pandemic has demonstrated how important the role of communities is in delivering support to people living with dementia, and people living with dementia have often been active agents within this. The projects funded in this round are all committed to ensuring that people with dementia and unpaid carers play an active role in developing and delivering their work. We are excited to see how they progress and are confident of the significant impact they will make in their local area and beyond.”
Sue Northrop, from Dementia Friendly East Lothian, said:
“We are so grateful to About Dementia and the panel for the grant. It will help people with dementia and unpaid carers and professionals to work together to improve the communities they live and work in. We will be able to be inspired and learn from communities across Scotland and share our learning too."
Scottish Ballet’s Senior Dance Health Manager, Lisa Sinclair, said:
“Scottish Ballet is delighted to have received an award from About Dementia to deliver Time to Dance®: On Your Doorstep. This vital support will enable the company’s health initiative, SB Health, to connect with a range of new partners in Glasgow, sharing the joy of dance and music. We look forward to collaborating with individuals, families and organisations to deliver dementia-friendly activities that truly reflect the breadth of voices and unique lived experience at the heart of our local community.”
John Macmillan, Chief Executive of The Eric Liddell Community, commented:
“We are delighted to be ramping up our Involvement work at The Eric Liddell Community and we are extremely grateful to Age Scotland for awarding us a grant from the Empowering Dementia Friendly Communities Fund. This grant will enable us to hire an Involvement Co-ordinator and accelerate positive change in how people living with dementia and their carers are supported, enabled and included as part of our community."
Dawn-Claire Irvine, Creative Engagement Manager and Dementia Programme Lead at Capital Theatres, remarked:
“We are absolutely thrilled to receive this funding from Age Scotland. It enables us to continue working alongside our dementia friendly community (DFC) in the development of meaningful artistic programmes for people with lived experience of dementia. We absolutely believe in a place where people living with dementia are celebrated, valued and respected for their contribution to society and able to exercise their right to a cultural life for as long as they desire. We just can’t wait to get started!”
Eunice Gardyne, the Forget Me Not Club, said:
“We are absolutely delighted to have been successful with our application as this means that we can now start getting another pop- up session arranged in other areas of Aberdeenshire. It is sad that there is such a lack of dementia support services within Aberdeenshire, and we are so proud that we shall be able to go out and support more families.”
The next grant programme to be delivered by About Dementia as part of the Scottish Government Partnership Fund will focus on inspiring grassroots activity and will be open to smaller, community-led organisations. This fund will be co-produced with people living with dementia and unpaid carers at every stage, from criteria-setting and developing the application process to the assessment and decision making. This programme will launch this summer and opportunities for those interested in being involved in this process will be announced soon.
