Suffolk’s leading civil rights charity is celebrating today as it announces a £30,000 grant from Comic Relief.
The money has been awarded to the Ipswich and Suffolk Council for Racial Equality (ISCRE) to help it improve core resilience and strengthen its independence to continue to deliver its services aimed at empowering Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities across the county.
The grant has been given to ISCRE from Comic Relief’s Core Strength – a pilot core funding programme for smaller organisations with an income of between £100,000-£500,000.
ISCRE has been very successful in securing additional grants to support other aspects of the ISCRE family, including the Tackling Discrimination in the East and Suffolk Law Advice Centre initiatives, plus the EU-funded Living Rights project.
However, in recent years ISCRE has experienced a surge in the number of people referred to its services and in the number of complex cases it now supports and put a strain on the charity’s ability to deliver its core purpose.
Part of Comic Relief’s funding will go towards supporting a key post to help ISCRE deliver these services better.
Phanuel Mutumburi, ISCRE’s business and operations director said “this grant gives us breathing space to reflect on our current services and update them. This is seriously good news for Suffolk. 2017 is our 40th year in helping the county’s minority communities and this is the best birthday present we could have received.”
