Liverpool community organisation for Women and Girls, Drops of Jupiter CIC, awarded National Lottery Funding

Drops of Jupiter In the Community CIC, is today celebrating after being awarded almost £20,000 in National Lottery funding to support its work with local women and girls living with loneliness.

The group, based in Mossley Hill, Liverpool, will use the money to support their ‘Her Mind Matters’ project, running mindfulness and meditation activities for local women and girls that could lead to an accredited qualification.

Drops of Jupiter In the Community CIC has been running since March 2024 and is staffed by mother and daughter duo, Gigi and Sacha Daley. It was founded by Gigi after she realised that the community was struggling to provide support to local women and girls who needed a safe space to make friends, to find connection and to learn new skills.

The group will run two sessions per week from November 2024 and will welcome 48 local women and girls during the next twelve months, where they will join in with activities around mindfulness, meditation, quieting the mind and general well-being. The sessions will help participants, not only to manage their own mental health, but also to make friends, while learning new skills and having fun. Alongside enjoying their time with us, participants will also be encouraged and supported in building their own self-confidence, their self-belief and developing a positive mindset.

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, will allow these sessions to become more accessible to participants by removing the cost for those who need them most. This means that the number of women and girls able to get involved will increase from 10 regular participants to 48.

At the same time, the CIC will be able to press on with plans to introduce further support sessions for women and girls in other areas of holistics and mental health and wellbeing. These will help them to build relationships with others experiencing the same challenges and hopefully enable them to develop their own support network.

Gigi Daley, says: “We’re delighted that The National Lottery Community Fund has recognised our work in this way. Now, thanks to National Lottery players we will be able to press on with our plans to broaden the range of opportunities available to local women and girls. This is important because it helps those in our community to build relationships with others facing similar challenges and to create their own supportive circles of friends and peers.”

Tia, friend of Drops of Jupiter In the Community CIC, says: “Drops of Jupiter In the Community CIC has helped to change my life in more ways than they will ever know. I was at a time in my life where I felt lost and alone, but Gigi and Sacha have created such a beautiful space I have been able to join a wonderful community of people who are now friends. It’s so nice to be around people who accept you as you are.”

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.