Vote now for your Lynn News Charity of the Year
Today, we unveil the shortlist of causes from which you can choose our new Charity of the Year, with the winner featuring regularly in the Lynn News.
Many suggestions have been made via social media, word of mouth and letter.
Scroll to the end of the story to vote in our poll to help decide the winner.
Here, the causes make their cases for your support.
Meet the finalists
8:56 Foundation
In the UK 4912 suicides were registered in 2020, 76% of cases male.
Key risk factors for suicide include mental health complications.
The Foundation was formed in the summer 2021 in memory of Lee Calton who took his life at the age of 37. The Foundation was formed to prevent future tragedy.
The aims of the foundation are to raise awareness of male suicide and mental health complications, implement initiatives to prevent, and provide support for those in need.
The Foundation has run successful fund-raising events that have also raised awareness of male suicide and mental health complications.
The Foundation now provides counselling to those in need.
Men’s Time has been launched providing a setting for men to socialise and participate in sport.
The Foundation has teamed up with Anglia Ruskin University to improve male mental health in our locality, just a few examples of our work.
The Benjamin Foundation
For over 25 years children, young people and families across Norfolk and Suffolk have been supported by The Benjamin Foundation to overcome big challenges in their lives.
Each night we accommodate 180 vulnerable young people, equating to over 50,000 safe nights a year for local young people. They can finally feel safe from youth homelessness. We are proud to be the regional partner for the End Youth Homelessness campaign.
Each week 150 young people access our emotional wellbeing support. In the last year this equates to 7,500 emotional wellbeing support sessions improving their mental health, increasing their self-esteem and to finally feel understood.
Each year over 400 young people attend our youth work in the community to gain new life skills, expand their horizons and finally feel confident.
Overall 2,000 local children and young people every year finally feel hopeful of a better future because of the work of The Benjamin Foundation.
For more information about The Benjamin Foundation visit www.benjaminfoundation.co.uk
Pandora Project
The charity supports women, children and young people affected by domestic abuse, abuse can be current or historic.
We provide confidential support and information to those living in West Norfolk and have expanded to also cover North Norfolk and Swaffham.
We offer 1-2-1 support, a weekday web chat, as well as group programmes. We educate other agencies and workplaces and also create awareness in the local community about the prevalence of domestic abuse.
Currently one in four women will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime and two women a week are killed by a partner or ex-partner in England and Wales. During the pandemic, lockdown exacerbated existing situations and our service has never been more in demand.
People think domestic abuse doesn't happen in Norfolk, however, over the last year referral numbers for women and children accessing our specialist support have more than doubled.
We believe that everyone should have the right to live without fear.
The Norfolk Hospice Tapping House
The Norfolk Hospice Tapping House has been caring for people living with life-limiting illnesses and supporting their families since 1984.
We are based in the village of Hillington and we support over 1,100 families each year and our services include a nine-bed inpatient unit, our Hospice at Home service, a therapy department and our family and carer support team. We provide outstanding and compassionate end of life care to residents living in North and West Norfolk.
We are an independent charity and we require £2.7million a year to run all of our services, which are all provided free of charge. Although around 30% of this is government funded, we rely on the generosity of the general public to fund the majority of this.
Little Discoverers
We are so thrilled to be nominated for the Lynn News Charity of the Year! It would be a fantastic opportunity for us to raise funds and awareness for Little Discoverers.
Little Discoverers is a charitable organisation that provides specialist advice and support, three days a week, for parents of pre-school aged children with motor learning development delays or difficulties.
Little Discoverers provides a free service for around 24 families in the West Norfolk area. The parents/carers attend one two-hour session a week which includes the use of music, singing, signing and fun to encourage a child’s motor development. They provide a unique and holistic form of early education inspired by methods used at the Peto Institute of Conductive Education in Hungary.
Specially trained staff and equipment are used alongside specific, individual targets, for the children to learn and concentrate on these key areas of development; physical, emotional, social and personal and communication skills.
Children at Little Discoverers have a diverse range of complex needs for example, a child may have Cerebral Palsy, Downs Syndrome or genetic conditions.
Families can form a network of understanding friends, benefitting from sharing experiences and helping each other in many ways.
It costs more than £45,000 every year to hire a space in an accessible area, pay the salaries of the three members of staff and provide specialist equipment and learning resources, as well as much more. Little Discoverers looks at what the children CAN do and focuses on celebrating each child’s individual achievements, no matter how small, at every session.
West Norfolk Carers
West Norfolk Carers began in 1993 and was quite literally a project in a box. Since that time, the work has increased and West Norfolk Carers became a registered charity in January 2005.
Located in King’s Lynn and supporting carers across West Norfolk, WNC supports unpaid family carers of all ages. Carers entrust us with the detail of their lives concerning some of their most upsetting situations at times in their lives when they feel most vulnerable.
Our aim is to help make difficult circumstances feel manageable. We do this by listening, offering information and guidance, and for some carers, this includes Care Act compliant Advocacy support. We provide carers groups, one to one listening support, access to drawing and talking therapies. We support children in school by working closely with the school, teacher and others connected to them.
Caring for somebody else can be very rewarding. It can also be very upsetting and worrying, and for some, the burden of caring and living with constant anxiety and upset can be distressing having a negative effect on their own mental and physical health. Carers want to cope but sometimes there comes a point when they feel overcome with pressure of caring. West NorfolkCarers is there to help remove some of that pain. We work with family members to find the best means of support for them. We link with other services and act as a central point for all parties,enabling carers to cope and care for as long as they feel able to do so, supporting and comfortingwhen they feel they cannot.
This quiet and unsung charity, sitting in the heart of West Norfolk, offers a safe place for unpaid family carers, where they can receive non-judgemental, practical and emotional support at a time when they most need it.
WNDA
WNDA is a charity that supports people with hearing loss in West Norfolk with earwax clinics and hearing aid support at their premises. The WNDA has a bookshop in Downham that offers hearing clinic and raises funds for the charity.
We have a wide range of resources that can be used and social and support activities for families in the area.
We provide support, information and advice for Deaf children, young people, adults and elders, and people with acquired hearing loss.
Specialist advice and advocacy for Deaf people is provided in British Sign Language (BSL). Activities for children aged 5-16 years provided in the fully equipped children’s playroom on the upper floor and in the community, including the Swimming Club. Also organises and provides social activities for people with acquired hearing loss in community settings.
Other services include: Hearing Support, maintenance and servicing of NHS Hearing Aids, provision of assistive technologies BSL and lipreading classes, clinical earwax removal service Deaf Awareness Training, Meeting rooms available to hire at the Deaf Centre. Home visits are provided by this service.
