Four community organisation in Flintshire vying for share of £60,000 seized from criminals
People across North Wales are being urged to vote for their favourite crime fighting schemes – using money seized from criminals.
The successful groups stand to win £2,500 each from a pot of money set up by North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Arfon Jones.
There is a total of more than £60,000 up for grabs with two groups from each county set to be rewarded.
In addition, two groups that work in three or more counties will each receive a grant of £5,000 and, thanks to additional funding from the police and crime commissioner, there will be two new grants of £10,000.
The only condition is that the successful groups have to pledge to run projects to tackle anti-social behaviour and combat crime and disorder.
The Your Community, Your Choice’ scheme was launched by Mr Jones and Assistant Chief Constable Neill Anderson in partnership with the North Wales Police and Community Trust (PACT).
It is being jointly funded by money recovered through the Proceeds of Crime Act, using cash confiscated from offenders, and the Commissioner’s Fund.
A shortlist of applicants for the Your Community Your Choice cash has been chosen by a special panel and the public decide which groups to support with a vote via the websites of North Wales Police and the commissioner, as well as a dedicated email address. The voting is open until midnight on March 15.
Mr Jones said: “It’s very appropriate that this scheme takes money away from the crooks and gives it to the people to improve the quality of life in their communities by helping them to combat crime and disorder or anti-social behaviour.
“The money is going where it’s going to make a difference in reducing crime and in improving the quality of the communities which suffer the crime.”
The message was reinforced by Assistant Chief Neill Anderson who said: “It is a very good thing for community groups to be able to access pots of money in order to be able to reduce crime and disorder within their communities and improve the quality of life for the community in their area.
“It sends a really positive message that money taken from the pockets of criminals is being recycled. This is turning bad money into good money that’s being used for a constructive purpose.
“We really value our relationships with the public and we recognise that we can’t reduce crime and disorder on our own.
It’s a partnership and a joint effort with other agencies but absolutely crucial and critically is the public themselves.
“The public often are the ones who know what the things are that will work best in their area and for them to be able to bid into a pot of money is a really positive thing.”
According to PACT project manager Dave Evans, it was also a very democratic process because the public will be able to decide who gets the money.
Mr Evans said: “One of the real pluses of the scheme is that ultimately it’s the public who has the voice and who will say which projects will go forward and are worthy of this important money.
“And very appropriately, one of the conditions is that the people who apply for this money have to be doing something that combats anti-social behaviour or addresses crime and disorder in some way.
“The aims Your Community, Your Choice scheme also coincide with the objectives of the Commissioner’s Police and Crime Plan so it creates a virtuous circle.”
Four Flintshire based community organisations are vying for a share of the cash:
Applicant: Cobra Life CIC
Title: Success for Life
Area: Flintshire
Amount Requested: £2,489.00
Project Outline:
“Through the proper and professional use of martial arts our social mission is to help improve lives in the local community, reduce the number of victims that there are to domestic abuse and crimes of aggression.
We also work very closely with the children in the local community through sessions in school and after school to improve their fitness, well-being and life skills to make them less likely to become the victim of bullying or street crime and to help prevent them turning to crime, being “on the streets” and in turn making them better citizens as they grow to be our future adults.
Our sessions have been able to improve the essential life skills in children will dramatically increase their likelihood of doing better in school, improving their grades, going onto better things in life and ultimately being better adults and citizens to the country.”
Applicant: Connah’s Quay and District Angling Club
Title: Refurbishment of Wepre Park Fishing Lake
Area: Flintshire
Amount Requested: £2,500.00
Project Outline:
“The club has its main water at Wepre Park in Connahs Quay called the Rosie. Every year at the Rosie the club actively engages with young children to join our
“Fish Early Fish for life programme” so that the young people are introduced to the sport of fishing, which one would hope encourages them away from hanging about street corners etc, or away from their computers.
The club runs this programme during the school holidays with both the volunteer committee members and bailiffs providing their free time and equipment to deliver this.
Up to now this has been very well received by both children and parents, so much that in the future the club will look to engage with schools to see if there is an opportunity to develop this in actual school term.
Along with this we also are keen to build up our retirees and disabled membership, including ex-servicemen as fishing is definitely a good way to relax and meet others on the fishing bank.
If we are successful with our application to you the money will be used to refurbish / replace items or as part match funding for the bigger projects such as , peg renewal, or airation system.”
Applicant: Pen-y-Lan Community Project
Title: Pen-y-Lan Community Project Connah’s Quay
Area: Flintshire
Amount Requested: £2,500.00
Project Outline:
“We are looking to engage young volunteers in our area to bring them new skills and turn young people away from criminal activities, and also help with rehabilitation to help them avoid becoming involved in the drug-gang arena.
Already we have seen success with several young people involved in our project.
Some of our young people have been volunteering with our garden project every Tuesday and we would like to use some of this funding to purchase new equipment to develop this further.
We are planning to involve local children on a continuous basis to increase their awareness of healthy living.
In addition to work with young people we also support vulnerable adults with learning difficulties, helping them with housing or financial problems and signposting them to the relevant agencies.”
Applicant: RainbowBiz CIC
Title: Drop-in Groups
Area: Flintshire
Amount Requested: £2,500.00
Project Outline:
Spotted something? Got a story? Send a Facebook Message | A direct message on Twitter | Email: News@Deeside.com“RainbowBiz would like to provide a safe environment within which we can provide activities to support isolated, vulnerable adults in partnership with the local Safer Neighbourhood Policing Team based in Mold.
We would run weekly two-hour adult sessions each Thursday where they can take part in a variety of activities including arts, mixed-media, jewellery making, quizzes and raising awareness of crime and anti-social behaviour issues affecting our clients and helping to educate them about how to report crime whilst staying safe. We also intend to hold regular internet safety sessions highlighting the importance of staying safe on-line and safe use of the internet and social-media.
Funding would also enable us to set up young people’s groups for those aged 13 to 19.
These would run Wednesday weekly and include activity sessions on staying safe promoting self-confidence and community cohesion with a view to reduce crime and ant-social behaviour.
These sessions would work closely with Flintshire Sorted youth support network who would look at drug and alcohol awareness to ensure the young people we are aiming to work with are kept safe.
RainbowBiz offers a safe space for marginalised groups young people and adults within the LGBT community we are committed to promoting equality and diversity and also to increase the confidence of our members to report hate crime issues they may be victim to.”
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