A Creative Arts Programme for children in and around Presteigne receives £19.8k funding from the National Lottery Community Fund

 The Sidney Nolan Trust, rural arts charity based at The Rodd near Presteigne, is celebrating a grant of £19,804 from the National Lottery Community Fund in Wales to support its popular MAKE arts programme for seven to 11-year-olds for two years until July 2027.

The weekly arts club runs on Monday afternoons during term time at the Youth Centre in Presteigne, and was developed to give access to arts and creative learning for young people in Presteigne and the surrounding area. 

The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK, provides vital support to sustain this valued community-based after-school programme.

Led by local artists Sophie Ferrier and Olivia Mabey, the sessions give young people the opportunity to explore a wide range of ideas and creative skills, and to showcase their artwork in the community. 

Participants play an active part in shaping the sessions and the group has worked across drawing, printmaking, photography, animation, and puppetry, to name but a few.

Antony Mottershead, the Sidney Nolan Trust’s Curator and Creative Producer, who established the project with start-up support from the Ashley Family Foundation, said: “We’re proud to be enabling young people in our rural area to get hands-on through MAKE with a range of creative ideas and processes. 

“We know that the arts are increasingly pushed to the margins of education and the support of The National Lottery Community Fund enables us to maintain this vibrant artist-led programme in the heart of our community. 

“Alongside developing their creativity and problem-solving we also see our participants growing in confidence, social skills and aspiration.”

Once young people reach the age of 11, they are encouraged to continue their creative journey by joining the Trust’s Cultivate arts programme, which caters for 11 to 18 year olds.

One of the young people commented: “I have been going to the Sidney Nolan Trust for a long time now. I started in the MAKE group and then progressed to the Cultivate group. 

“One of the sessions I really liked at MAKE was the Lino printing. We sketched plants and transferred the image to Lino and made prints. 

“There are so many things I love about Cultivate. I get to meet artists and be inspired by them, and even work with them. At Cultivate, I get to meet people and work with materials that I can’t do anywhere else. I live somewhere where I can’t find much art to take part in. Cultivate helps me feel like I can be an artist.”

The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its strategy, ‘It starts with community’, which will underpin its efforts to distribute at least £4 billion of National Lottery funding by 2030. 

As part of this, the funder has four key missions, which are to support communities to come together, be environmentally sustainable, help children and young people thrive and enable people to live healthier lives.

National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, last year (2023/24) The National Lottery Community Fund awarded over half a billion pounds (£686.3 million) of life-changing funding to communities across the UK, supporting over 13,700  projects to turn their great ideas into reality. 

To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk

MAKE resumed on Monday, April 28 until Monday, May 19

There is no MAKE on Monday 5 May (Bank Holiday) and Monday 26 May (Halfterm)

MAKE will resume on Monday, June 2 until Monday, July 7

To find out more about the MAKE or Cultivate programmes and to sign up, please email learning@sidneynolantrust.org