The Staffordshire Wildlife Trust has been given £2,750 from the Police and Crime Commissioner’s People Power Fund to encourage youngsters to experience the outdoors.
The Wildlife Trust was awarded the funding to set up an activity programme called Wildplay around Stoke-on-Trent parks in the May half term and weekends for children aged five to 13.
The activities ran to reduce the amount of time children spend indoors, reduce anti-social behaviour and encourage young people to get our and learn about nature and wildlife. Over 350 youngsters attended throughout the half term week and got involved in den building, pond dipping, obstacle courses and art.
As part of his commitment to local communities, the Commissioner is providing £500,000 in 2015/16 through the People Power Fund in the form of grants of between £100 and £3,000. The fund is supporting locally-driven community safety activities in local areas throughout Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.
Mr Ellis said: “The Wildplay activities ran by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust are a great way to engage with young people and it was great to see so many youngsters getting involved.
“It’s activities like this that help to prevent anti-social behaviour and allow youngsters to experience the outdoors.
“The Commissioner’s People Power Fund puts half a million pounds back into local communities and is easy and simple to apply for.”
Hannah Farley, Wildplay Officer at Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, said: “With the money awarded to us by the PCC, Staffordshire Wildlife Trust has been able to provide free outdoor Wildplay sessions at weekends and during the school holidays for children across Stoke-on-Trent.
“These sessions gave five to 14 year olds something positive to do in their local green space by exploring nature through fun activities such as den building, scavenger hunts and bug hunting. This provided opportunities for families to come and do something fun together as a team, as well as introducing them to ways of enjoying the nature around them and respect of the wildlife in it.
“In the future we would like to continue providing these free Wildplay sessions to encourage children and their families to get outdoors and explore.”
The People Power Fund is one part of £2.5 million of Commissioner’s Community Funding for 2014/15. The Commissioner’s Locality Deal Fund has allocated money to local areas through working in partnership with local district and borough councils. Meanwhile, the Commissioner’s Proceeds of Crime Fund is seeing 100 per cent of funding received by Staffordshire Police going back into local communities, through grants of between £3,000 and £15,000. It is made up of money seized from criminals as Staffordshire Police continue to strip offenders of their assets.
Successful projects in all three funding streams will deliver what’s important to local people based on the four priorities set out in the Commissioner’s Safer, Fairer, United Communities Strategy – tackling the root causes of crime through early intervention, supporting victims and witnesses better, reducing reoffending and increasing public confidence.
