AN organisation that trains volunteers and community groups has been given a lottery grant of almost £400,000 to help it through the current recession.
Hartlepool-based SkillShare North East was awarded £388,138 from the Big Lottery Fund.
Skillshare North East, which was set up 19 years ago and is now based in Hartlepool's Belle Vue Centre, is one of 16 projects across England sharing a £7.2m win
dfall.
Margaret Wrenn, chairman of SkillShare North East, said: "We are delighted to receive this award from the Big Lottery Fund as it gives SkillShare and our partners the opportunity to provide volunteers and people paid to work in the voluntary and community sector with training which will help them on a very practical level.
"The training offered will help them to involve more people, manage existing groups and get the qualifications which are most suitable for them.
"The award itself means we can remove many of the barriers to learning, such as high cost, by offering free provision in local venues across Tees Valley."
James Turner, Big Lottery Fund head of region for North East England, said: "The additional BASIS funding will further help the sector cope with the strains of the economic downturn.
"Voluntary organisations can find themselves stretched by a high demand for services at a time when some sources of income dwindle."
BASIS (Building and Sustaining Infrastructure Services) is the first Big Lottery Fund programme to focus solely on developing voluntary and community sector infrastructure.
The BASIS awards are part of a wider Big Lottery Fund multi-million pound package of additional funding delivered through its existing programmes to support projects that will help the voluntary and community service sector cope with the effects of the recession.
