This workshop is aimed at organisations with experience in working with people with disabilities and with an interest in developing Community Led Local Development projects in South Leeds.

Since launching in September 2018, five projects have been funded through the CLLD Programme in South Leeds. There is now a limited amount of funding left for the South Leeds CLLD programme and, whilst the Local Action Group have not changed their Calls, they would now be interested in applications coming forward which might address the parts of the local development strategies which haven’t yet been fulfilled.

The South Local Action Group welcome applications for all aspects of the strategy, but are particularly interested in applications coming forward in the new year that focus on supporting people with undiagnosed learning disabilities, to move closer to, and into employment.

The discussion at the workshop will help identify gaps for projects and possible ideas that fit with this strand of the Local Development Strategy with the aim of encouraging good applications to come forward for the ESF and ERDF Calls in the area.

As Chair of the South LAG, Lindsey Pearson, explains “we have supported five fantastic projects so far in South Leeds with funding from the CLLD programme. There remains a gap around a project(s) that would support people with undiagnosed learning disabilities. As highlighted in the Local Development Strategy, there is a large group of people with disabilities in South Leeds, both diagnosed and undiagnosed, who struggle to engage in the economy. A small amount of investment in helping people, for example, to identify undiagnosed disabilities that affect their employment prospects, may open up a whole new world of support; that means that instead of a life of persistent unemployment people can aspire to other options in employment and education.

If you are an organisation with a project idea around supporting the employment prospects of people with learning disabilities, I would suggest getting in touch with the programme team and attending this workshop”

The workshop will include information on the learning disability strand of the strategy led by LAG Member, Diane Wilson, an update on the CLLD programme in South Leeds and a breakout discussion. Attendees will also hear from Arnie Sajad from Hamara about their successfully funded CLLD project.

Community Led Local Development (CLLD) is an initiative funded by the European Union, funding the delivery of employment, skills and enterprise support using European Social Fund (ESF) and European Regional Development Funds (ERDF). Organisations from the third, public and private sector can apply to deliver a project. The deadline for applications in Leeds is 31st March 2020. For more information, please see the CLLD website - https://www.leeds.gov.uk/clld