Welsh Government | £1.5 million to promote community cohesion

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£1.5 million to promote community cohesion

The Social Justice Minister has announced £1.5 million for 2011/12 to help develop strong, resilient and harmonious communities across Wales.

Friday 03 December 2010

Tackling social exclusion and achieving a fair and just society is a One Wales commitment. Since April 2009 the Welsh Assembly Government has provided £3.9 million of funding to local authorities to encourage communities across Wales to get on well together.

Such funding has enabled local authorities to take a strategic approach to their own local cohesion issues, work with a range of local partners to devise solutions.

One year on since the launch of ‘Getting on Together – a Community Cohesion Strategy for Wales’ the Assembly Government has produced an action plan to demonstrate what they have achieved so far, as well as setting out their future commitments.

Over the past year, the Welsh Assembly Government has provided funding for the ‘Young at Heart’ project in Caerphilly that gives help and advice to older people. The project aims to get older people involved in the local community by providing places to meet and arranging volunteering opportunities.

Community cohesion funding has also provided financial support to the ‘Beyond the School Gates’ project in Flintshire. The project arranges weekly sessions to improve relationships between local schools and families in order to benefit pupils and their education.

The Minister said,

“It great that projects resulting from the Getting on Together strategy are making a real, tangible difference to communities across Wales. Community cohesion is about different sections of the community learning to respect each other, to understand each other’s views and to get on together even though there may be differences between them.

“These differences may be due to the colour of their skin, their age, religious views, ethnic origin, language or social class. Community cohesion is about respecting those differences and focussing instead on what we have in common, our shared values.

“Providing a third year of the Community Cohesion Fund shows the importance of developing strong, cohesive communities in Wales.”