Lottery Good Causes Award funds for four groups

Ability Equine Assisted Therapy, Nobber GFC, Involve Youth Project Meath and Third Age Foundation CLG are the four Meath clubs and groups announced as county winners in the National Lottery Good Causes Awards 2022.

The awards honour and showcase inspiring work being carried out by thousands of projects, clubs and individuals in their local communities across Ireland. The four Meath county winners go through to the next round of the competition when the 118 county winners will be whittled down to 35 finalists who will each win €1,000 when they are announced in June.

At the national awards ceremony in October, each of the seven category winners will receive €10,000 and the overall Good Cause of the Year will take home an additional €25,000.

Ability Equine Assisted Therapy located outside Castletown, provide therapeutic horse-riding lessons for children and adults of all abilities in an inclusive environment. Good Causes funding received via the HSE National Lottery Grant Scheme enabled the group to run a series of summer camps for children with many different levels of needs. The camps were tailored towards the needs of the children and allowed each individual child to have the best possible experience.

Since receiving Good Causes funding via Sports Capital Programme, Nobber GAA Club has been able to build a modern clubhouse facility which has proved to have a huge impact on the entire community. The updated facilities include dressing rooms, a meeting room, a club gym, referees’ room, showers and toilets. The additional dressing rooms ensured that the club was equipped to cater for the new ladies' team. The clubhouse offers an excellent viewpoint on match days as it is situated parallel to the main pitch.

Involve Youth Project Meath works with members of the Travelling Community providing educational and training programmes for young people aged six to 20 years old. Good Causes funding issued by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth enabled the youth work services group to deliver additional supports by purchasing sports equipment that proved highly beneficial during the past two years of Covid when many of the activities had to be delivered outdoors due to restrictions. To date, over 120 young people in the Meath area have benefited from the funding.

The fourth Meath recipient was Third Age Foundation CLG. Fáilte Isteach, a national programme of Third Age Foundation, is a community project that supports integration by welcoming migrants through free conversational English classes.

Thanks to HSE National Lottery funding, the project provides 144 classes in 105 communities in every county and most recently, Fáilte Isteach is responding to the needs of the refugees arriving from Ukraine.