By KLTV Newsdesk –
The Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, has awarded over £320,000 to community projects that are making the region safer.
At the Mayor’s Safer Communities Fund ceremony on Thursday (6 October), Mayor Brabin renewed her commitment to creating a safer West Yorkshire by granting a total of £326,032.84 to frontline community safety projects from the five districts.
The event saw 61 innovative projects run by community groups, charities, and partners, including a number based in Kirklees, receive grants of up to £6000.
This brings the total amount of funding provided to community safety projects by the Mayor to over £530,000. This is in addition to the £3.8 million already delivered by the scheme to 752 projects since 2014.
Each of these projects addresses at least one of the cross-cutting themes or priorities within the Mayor’s Police and Crime Plan, including keeping women and girls safe, diversity, equality, and inclusion, and early intervention and prevention.
A number of Kirklees-based projects have been supported by the Mayor’s Safer Communities Fund, including Kick Start, a community organisation working with young people. Kick Start will be using motorbikes to teach practical life skills, while tackling issues around knife crime prevention, drug awareness, and antisocial behaviour.
Joy Edwards and Junior Montano, from Kick Start, spoke about how the awarded money will help support their work
“We applied to the Mayor’s Safer Communities Fund to help and support the Mayor’s work keeping young people off the streets and involved in something positive within their community.
“We are run by the community, for the community, and we have an amazing team of volunteers behind us.
“With this funding, we can engage with young people, get them involved with something positive and give them a brighter future.”
Speaking at the event, Mayor Brabin said: “The safety of everybody in West Yorkshire is an absolute priority of mine.
“My Safer Communities Fund uses money taken from criminals and gives it back to the communities harmed by their activities.
“I am delighted to support so many incredible local safety projects and am looking forward to supporting many more in the future.”
Other funded projects across the Kirklees district include:
- Gladiators Boxing Academy whose project will be engaging with the female population of the Gypsy Roma Traveller and refugee, asylum seeker and migrant populations in fitness and boxing.
- Freedom Personal Safety’s SshOUT project will be delivered in schools to address the issue of peer-on-peer sexual harassment. They’ll be delivering training to staff and students, and creating bespoke lesson plans.
- Pursuit of Happiness’s Saturday Skills School received funding from the Mayor’s Safer Communities Fund to deliver a programme for young black people focusing on inclusion and diversity and addressing disparities in education and employment.
- The Mayor’s Safer Communities Fund is financed by money from criminal activity that has been recovered by West Yorkshire Police and prosecutors under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
West Yorkshire Police Chief Constable John Robins QPM DL added: “I am so pleased to see that this money, which has been confiscated from criminals following action from West Yorkshire Police, has come full circle and is being put to good use in our communities.
“The funding enables these local groups and projects to play a key part in the partnership response to preventing crime, which can be so vital in making a difference to the lives of people in West Yorkshire.”