Plater Trust makes record number of grants for social justice projects

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Chair of the Charles Plater Trust, announced the latest successful recipients of Plater Trust grants at its annual celebration held at the Cardinal Hume Centre, Westminster on 12th March.

The projects awarded grants funding span the range of social justice activities, assisting refugees, the homeless, those suffering exclusion, unemployment and the educationally disadvantaged. A number of projects will involve young people: pre-school (those missing out on opportunities to learn and play), school age (an award scheme inspired by St Oscar Romero) and after school (training for future young leaders).

The nine successful award winners in 2019 are:

Borderlands Trust - £30,000

Borderlands is a charity supporting asylum seekers and refugees in Bristol to rebuild their lives. The charity is closely linked with the Catholic parish of St Nicholas of Tolentino. Their Mentoring Project aims to provide support for 120 asylum seekers and refugees over the next two years.

CAFOD - £30,000

The Step into the Gap programme enables young adults from a wide background to have the opportunity to learn invaluable life skills and develop their faith. The programme aims to address the need to nurture a new generation of lay Catholic leaders, who are now in their late teens and early 20s. These young people are eager to work for social justice at community level and overseas and to establish a legacy of Catholic Social Teaching.

Faith in Families - £50,000

This project is aimed at pre-school children who may be denied access to the basic right of learning, laughter and friendship. The grant will enable Faith in Families to employ an Engagement Worker and Play Workers to deliver intensive support, play and learning activities for children and their parents together, building relationships using a variety of engagement tools with the child and the parent/carer.

L'Arche - £35,520

L'Arche is a Christian Community grounded in the social teaching of the Church, supporting people with learning disabilities. The grant will fund a project to create a tailored induction programme for new staff that integrates the values of L'Arche and Catholic Social Training (CST) into the Care Certificate. The programme will be piloted in give L'Arche Communities and then provide the foundation of all L'Arche's future training, formation and leadership development programmes.

Mustard Tree - £50,000

Mustard Tree works with people unable to work, such as those claiming benefits, asylum seekers or people with disabilities and supports them to develop new skills, find work and secure somewhere to live through providing practical support. The grant will support a programme to give "Freedom volunteers" the opportunity to recognise their talents and contribute to community through meaningful volunteering, practical work experience in Mustard Tree's own operations, training and support needed to secure sustainable employment, awareness of their rights and help increase their financial capability through Money Management courses.

Oscar Romero Award - £45,862

This project aims to establish an Award to promote social justice in Catholic schools and colleges across the country, inspired by the example of Blessed (Saint) Oscar Romero. The Oscar Romero Trust Award will celebrate each school/college's commitment to promoting Catholic social justice. The Award initially aims to reach 200 schools, in the Catholic dioceses in London and the South East of England by 2020

Pact - £26,043

This grant over the next two years, will enable PACT to establish a pilot project in a diocese in the south of England, where it has an active presence. Pact will work with these parishioners to develop, review and pilot resources, both theological and practical, to deepen participants' understanding of the needs of prisoners and their families, and which can then be used in their engagement with parishes more widely, building on our work around Prisoners' Sunday. The project aims also to create a new parish training programme which can be and used by parishes across England and Wales, including from other Church communities, and as appropriate, other faith groups,

THOMAS - £47,000

THOMAS is a specialist provider of drug and alcohol rehabilitation and homelessness services in Blackburn, Salford, Trafford and Bolton. The grant will enable them to develop a programme, grounded in Catholic Social Teaching concepts and principles. This programme will engage and support 25 members of local communities and parishes in Blackburn, Salford, Bolton and Trafford. Trained volunteers will offer life-changing mentoring, support and direction to 40 people who are socially excluded, addicted to drugs or alcohol, living in poverty, or at risk of homeless.

Women at the Well - £36,023

Women at the Well seeks to ensure that all women entrapped in the sex trade are given hope and are supported to see that an alternative future is possible. It provides women with comprehensive support to exit a life of prostitution, abuse, homelessness and poverty. Many have been trafficked into the sex trade whilst others are trapped by the on-going chaos of their lives. The grant will fund for a Support and Advocacy Worker who will work one-to-one with women. The project includes training and workshops to build self-esteem and confidence, explore the possibility of employment and further training and help them navigate the often confusion range of services they need to access in order to start the process of exiting prostitution.

The Trust received 35 applications for funding, requesting over £1 million. These were mostly of the highest quality and only the limit on the amount available prevented more proposals from being supported. The Trust provides grants out of the proceeds of its investments from the sale of the original Plater College. This year, the Trustees were able to allocate £350,000 to support nine projects, equalling last year's highest number of awards since the establishment of the Trust in 2008.

Participants at the award ceremony were also be able to meet winners of previous grants and hear from the Chief Executive of the Cardinal Hume Centre, George O'Neill.

The Charles Plater Trust is a charitable organisation dedicated to advancing the work of Father Charles Plater and the Catholic Social Guild by promoting social justice through education. Established as the successor to the former Plater College, Oxford, which closed in 2006, the Trust makes grants to organisations throughout England and Wales in line with the original Plater vision. Grants are awarded which contribute to the development of lay leadership, bringing education and opportunity to the most marginalised, or developing innovative new applications of Catholic social thought.

Since the Trust was established, it has awarded grants of over £1.8 million to support 44 projects in the fields of social action and education for the disadvantaged.

For further information visit: www.plater.org.uk/