The National Lottery Community Fund has confirmed that it will be supporting Mermaids with a grant of £500,000 over the course of 5 years.
One of main aims of the grant is for Mermaids to provide local support groups for transgender and gender variant children and their families around the UK. There are few such local support groups at the moment and the grant will change this. This is a fundamental and significant change. The grant means there will now be local support when currently there is none. This cannot be a bad thing. The UK will now be a better place for transgender and gender variant children and their families.
Mermaids warmly welcomes the Fund's decision, following the Fund's review of Mermaids' application for a grant. We are grateful for the Fund for conducting the
review in a detailed, thorough, fair and appropriate manner.
For Mermaids, the review was an opportunity both to affirm the value of increasing direct support with local groups, alongside training delivery and research development, and to demonstrate to the Fund that the charity was well positioned to produce and manage these initiatives. Mermaids will now be able do more to improve outcomes and experiences for transgender and gender-diverse children and young people.
During the review, Mermaids was overwhelmed by the support received from our current funders, organisations and individuals. The messages of support and solidarity have been incredible, and have been appreciated by the families that we help and all of our hard working volunteers, staff and trustees.
The review from the National Lottery Community Fund regarding this decision can be found here:
https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk.../outcome-of-review-of-proposed-mermaids-grant
