27/08/2003

NI childcare gets £1.3m boost

The New Opportunities Fund today announced £1.3 million worth of lottery grants for a number of childcare projects across Northern Ireland.

In the final announcement under the Out of School Hours Childcare grant programme, the National Lottery good cause distributor is awarding the grants to 16 innovative projects creating 1,344 childcare places.

The awards will go towards projects in Belfast, Armagh, Omagh, Fermanagh, Cookstown, Coleraine, Ballymoney, and Craigavon.

This means that the Fund has invested more than £9.2 million to create 13,800 childcare places across Northern Ireland since the programme opened in 1999. This has made a significant contribution to the lives of thousands of families in disadvantaged communities.

Following today's announcement, the Fund also announced the first awards from a new grant programme that aims to improve childcare provision. The Building Quality Childcare programme will invest £6 million lottery cash into supporting the capital costs of projects which aim to mainly meet the needs of pre-school children.

Grants totalling £567,411 have been awarded to nine projects across Northern Ireland to create vital outdoor play areas where none existed before, construct new buildings and equipment and to pay for the refurbishment of existing premises.

(MB)

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