The Combat Poverty agency has announced details of a new round of grants available to community and voluntary groups engaged in anti-poverty activities.
The Working Against Poverty grants scheme has an annual budget of €380,000 and is to run over the three-year period 2002-2004. The scheme is designed to assist groups in "contributing to policy formulation" on anti-poverty issues.
Announcing details yesterday, Combat Poverty's director, Ms Helen Johnston, said that the experience and expertise of community and voluntary groups had "a lot to offer policy-makers seeking to tackle the causes and effects of poverty".
In a March 2002 grants round, the first under the current scheme, there were 94 applications, 38 of which were successful.
Just over half of the total spend for this year was allocated during that stage.
The deadline for applications for the second and final round of grants in 2002 is September 18th.
More than 200 grants were issued to local groups during an earlier 1999-2001 grants scheme.
The scheme funds four types of activities:
- Training and skills development.
- Conferences, seminars and publications.
- Research on poverty and evaluation of actions taken to deal with it.
Policy analysis and promotion in order to help groups contribute effectively to policy debate.
Combat Poverty said that it assessed each grant application on its relevance to tackling poverty and on its potential to influence the policy debate as well as realistic costings, time scale and clarity.
Further information on the scheme is available from Combat Poverty at www.cpa.ie
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