Southampton Healthy Living awards £86,000 to local groups

Over £86,000 awarded to local groups to support Southampton residents to become healthier than ever

Southampton Healthy Living, a service set up last year to support residents to live healthier lives, has just awarded over £86,000 to a number of local and community organisations.

Southampton City Council commissioned the innovative service last year in response to the increasing health inequalities across the city.

Southampton Healthy Living are supporting groups across the city to offer a range of ways that local people can find support to help tackle health issues such as weight loss, stopping smoking, becoming more physically active or reducing the amount of alcohol they consume.

Those organisations receiving large grants include Awaaz FM, who have been awarded funding to encourage listeners to stop smoking over the Ramadan period.

Ali Beg from Awaaz FM said ‘We have teamed up with Southampton Voluntary Services and Southampton Healthy Living to focus on promoting practical steps to help quit smoking. The Awaaz project will run during the month of Ramadan and use the Holy month as a precursor to help quit smoking. Ramadan provides an excellent opportunity to change one’s mindset and environment to quit smoking. Fasting forces a smoker to change his mindset, his environment and his habit. Most routines are broken for a good part of the day over the four weeks. We will use the month of Ramadan to provide support and practical tips for Muslim smokers who want to give up. The project aims at opening the doors to promoting and signposting to specialist services that are available to help quit smoking.’

Organisations such as Testland Hub, Solent Softball, Saints Foundation and Active Nation all have activities available to the public for free or at very small costs. Other funded groups such as No Limits, The Conservation Volunteers, Energise Me, Sembal House and The Wheatsheaf Trust are all embarking on projects with clients and service users or working with specific groups of people who suffer from health inequalities within the city.

Councillor Dave Shields, Cabinet member for Health and Community Safety said ‘I’d like to congratulate these community health grant recipients for their innovative approaches to making our communities healthier.  We’re all aware that, as a society, we are exercising less and eating more and that this is proving very destructive to our health. What these organisations are offering – fun and easy sport and physical activities in your local area, that are convenient to you—can help Southampton become a healthier city.’

Jo Ash, on behalf of Southampton Healthy Living said ‘Last year’s funding provided us with some really innovative and interesting ways to get people creating new healthy behaviours.

It has been great to see that our communities within Southampton are still full of brilliant ideas to provide easy, fun and engaging ways to get Southampton thinking healthy and we look forward to seeing the groups and their communities prosper with the funding over the next year’.

The grants were awarded at an event held on Monday 21 May 2018 where the Mayor of Southampton, Councillor Stephen Barnes-Andrew along with Ruth Marriott, CEO of Social Care in Action presented representatives from each group with  a cheque.

If you would like to know more about each of the community funded projects, and how to get involved check out the Community Programmes section of the Southampton Healthy Living Website.