Rochdale Connections Trust celebrates National Lottery’s 25th birthday

Date published: 22 November 2019

Specially invited guests joined Rochdale Connections Trust (RCT) in celebrating the National Lottery’s 25th birthday, followed by the annual volunteer of the year award ceremony on Tuesday (19 November).

The celebration opened with a speech from the trust’s CEO, Kathy Thomas, followed by several videos of how the service has helped young people in the borough of Rochdale – helped by grants over the years from the National Lottery.

Some of the service’s users spoke about how RCT has helped them, and how they have been inspired to create a manifesto to raise awareness of sustainability and waste in the borough.

Chloe Lythgoe, 14, told Rochdale Online how much her confidence has grown in the three years since she was referred to Rochdale Connections Trust and how she enjoys the different activities they do.

The night continued with the presentation of awards to mentors Iain Brown, Lisanne Palmar, Scott Moore, Jessica Moody, and Jaymi Matthews, who was presented with the volunteer of the year award.

A rap written by one of the mentees, Kenzie Cowaid, 12, closed the evening. Kenzie has also found Rochdale Connections Trust helpful in boosting his confidence and improving his behaviour.

Addressing the evening, Mayor Billy Sheerin, who attended the celebrations, said: “Lots of happiness has come from austerity and strife, and their comradeship Is second to none here.

“It was my absolute pleasure to come here tonight. I am very proud to support and have Rochdale Connections Trust as one of my mayor’s charities this year.”

Bev Place, business development manager at RCT, added: “Tonight has been a wonderful occasion for celebrating 25 years of investing in Rochdale through people playing the lottery.

“Rochdale Connections Trust has been fortunate enough to receive two large grants in recent years which has enabled us to work with hundreds of deprived children across the borough.”

A grant from the from the National Lottery’s Awards for All programme earlier this year enabled Rochdale Connections Trust to renovate the ground floor of their premises to provide service-users with a more comfortable and welcoming environment to access support services from.

Established 22 years ago, Rochdale Connections Trust is an independent voluntary organisation which provides a range of valuable support services to young people, adults and families who are finding life difficult.

Referrals are received from a range of agencies, services and statutory bodies, including social services, the youth offending service, probation, schools and CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services).

The service was recently awarded Business of the Year (turnover less than £1million) at the ninth annual Rochdale Business Awards on Friday 8 November.

• www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/1/business-news/131238/rochdale-business-awards-2019

The charity was established in 1997 by a group of youth court magistrates, who had become increasingly concerned by the number of young people coming before them who had little or no family support.

After noticing many of the young people coming before them were becoming socially excluded, the magistrates set about to help them return to education and training via a range of social inclusion intervention programmes.

Since then, RCT has evolved to include work with socially isolated adults and those with complex needs, whilst remaining highly committed to their original targeted youth support programme.
A range of services are provided by fully trained staff and volunteers, including young people mentoring, female and male ‘Freedom Programmes’, literacy and numeracy courses and parenting courses, to name but a few.

The trust also works with other local services.