A GRANT of £60,000 over three years from the Tudor Trust announced last week will enable the Hatherleigh Area Project to recruit two part-time youth development workers to cover all 13 parishes of the Hatherleigh area. Noel Cartwright, the Hatherleigh Project co-ordinator, said: ?This grant from the Tudor Trust together with a smaller previous grant from the lottery Awards for All means that this project will now go ahead.? He said the project wanted to ?combat rural isolation for young people by providing an activity programme across the 13 parishes and to provide access to facilities dedicated to young people?. The youth workers will be able to provide signposting to services, including advice and information, counselling, drugs and sexual health education, that already exist, and develop new activity programmes suited to young people?s needs. In addition, the youth workers will act as fundraisers to implement some of the project ideas developed in the young people?s consultation held last year, including developing longer term solutions for providing rural facilities. Mr Cartwright added: ?There are about 700 young people aged 11 to 24 in the Hatherleigh area, and of these, about 500 live in the surrounding, rurally isolated parishes, often without adequate public transport links. ?It will be the job of the youth workers to reach out to these more isolated young people to provide them with access to services and to entertaining and challenging activities.? The area covered consists of the parishes of Hatherleigh, Broadwoodkelly, Bratton Clovelly, Beaworthy, Exbourne, Germansweek, Highampton, Iddesleigh, Inwardleigh, Jacobstowe, Meeth, Monkokehampton and Northlew. The Hatherleigh Area Project was set up in 2002 through the Market and Coastal Towns Initiative.
