Healthy living grants

NHS Worcestershire in Wychavon is offering small grants of up to £500 to support projects that improve health and wellbeing in the community.

Throughout Worcestershire, evidence shows that lifestyles are becoming increasingly unhealthy and NHS Worcestershire is looking for communities to become involved in improving their health.

Emma Gardner, Community Health Improvement Coordinator for Wychavon, said “We are looking for projects that support health and wellbeing in the community and target people who are at higher risk of poor health and dying younger. We gave out a similar grant a few years ago and the difference it made was staggering.”

“Defford Bowls Club received £500 towards a trolley for their bowls mats to make it easier for the group (all of whom are over 55 years) to put out and pack away the mats. There are now 34 members many of them over 65 years, so this trolley means that they no longer have to struggle to roll up mats by hand and lift them onto a 5 ft shelf”.

Projects could include a healthy living event for the wider community, a piece of equipment for an activity group, cooking sessions to encourage healthy eating, start up costs for an instructor to deliver exercise classes – the list goes on. This is a great way of enabling communities to decide what they need to improve their health.

Ron Davis, Executive Board Member for Community and Personal Health and Wellbeing, said “Small grants can make a huge difference to local groups enabling them to solve the health issues that affect their members.”

The most important thing about projects is that they benefits local residents, it has community support and participation, it involves as many local people as possible and it makes a positive difference to the community.

The application form and additional information can be found on this website here.

For more information about the Health Grants please contact Emma Gardner on 01386 565182 or email emma.gardner@wychavon.gov.uk