The City of London Corporation’s charitable funder, City Bridge Trust, has awarded grants totalling £2,865,025 to charities and organisations tackling inequality and disadvantage across London in the latest round of funding.

The grants include £98,900 to Ability Bow in Tower Hamlets for the running costs of Positive Steps, an exercise project aimed at supporting people who have mental health problems to take part in regular, supervised exercise; £85,300 to Action on Hearing Loss towards their Hear to Inform and Connect project which provides vital information services that enable isolated older people to better manage their hearing loss; and £37,100 to Vision Care for Homeless People, a charity that supports thousands of homeless people in London every year with eye care, to expand their services with new mobile clinics.

This has brought the total grants awarded during the financial year 2016/17 to £16,272,095 with 201 awards made across Greater London.

City Bridge Trust also announced a £3.3million commitment to a new ‘Bridge to Work’ programme that will work to narrow the employment gap for young disabled people in the capital.

Alison Gowman, Chairman of the City of London Corporation’s City Bridge Trust Committee, said:

“We have been able to award over £2.8million worth of grants in this round of funding to such a wide variety of charities. The Trust is committed to supporting Londoners to make our city a fairer place to work and live.

“We fund a broad range of work focused on tackling disadvantage in London: from improving Londoners’ mental health to services that strengthen London’s voluntary sector, from making London more accessible for disabled people to reducing poverty.

“We award around £20 million annually to charities across London to support and develop their services which are helping hundreds of thousands of people every year.”

David Brown, Manager at Vision Care for Homeless People, added:

“Volunteers are vital to the service we provide. We have optometrists giving their time to perform eye tests, volunteer clinic assistants ensuring the clinics run smoothly and branch lead teams - all playing their part. Over the course of a year, over 140 volunteers provide the eye care service for which homeless people are so grateful.

“Thanks to the City Bridge Trust grant we will be able to employ a volunteer manager, to support our existing volunteers and also develop our volunteer teams.

“More homeless people will get access to the eye care they need. We make a very significant difference to peoples’ lives with a small income, so the donation will go a very long way.”

City Bridge Trust is London’s biggest independent grant giver, making grants of £20 million a year to tackle disadvantage across the capital. The Trust has awarded around 7,600 grants totalling over £350 million since it first began in 1995. It helps achieve the Corporation’s aim of changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Londoners

ENDS

Media Enquiries

Kristina Drake

Media Officer, City of London Corporation

Kristina.Drake@cityoflondon.gov.uk

07710860884 / 020 7332 1125