National businesses throw their weight behind SE Wales awards

Two national businesses responsible for giving a helping hand to Welsh social enterprises are also backing a new awards scheme recognising some of the most successful ones.

Charity Bank and the Wales Co-operative Centre are sponsoring the EPIC (Enterprising People in Communities) awards, designed to reward the achievements of South East Wales’s most innovative social enterprises.

The EU-funded South East Wales Community Economic Development (SEWCED) programme, which comes to an end in August 2015 after five years, will be rewarding the cream of the region’s community organisations at a presentation dinner at the Vale Resort, Vale of Glamorgan in March.

Supported by the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh Government and run by a six-Valleys local authorities’ consortium of Merthyr Tydfil, Bridgend, Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Torfaen, SEWCED has invested £7.3m in 106 social enterprises since it began in 2010, helping to create 22 social enterprises and 110 full-time jobs.

Charity Bank is a loans and savings bank with a mission to use money for the common good. It makes loans to organisations that have a social purpose, using the money its savers entrust to it. When borrowers repay a loan, it is used to support like-minded organisations working to benefit society.

Sponsor of the Best Social Enterprise category at the EPIC Awards, the Bank recently appointed a new Director for Wales, Chris Tweedie, who said:

“As a social enterprise that exists to help social sector organisations to access loans, we have similar values to the organisations we support – so backing these awards is a natural fit.”

The Wales Co-operative Centre was founded more than 30 years ago to help co-operatives, social enterprises and voluntary groups.Funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh Government, it is dedicated to working with organisations and communities to tackle social, digital and financial exclusion in Wales.

The Wales Co-operative Centre is sponsoring the awards’ speaker, BBC TV and radio personality Roy Noble. Wales Co-operative Centre Chief Executive Derek Walker said:

“Our role is to help communities develop and grow co-operatives and social enterprises that are owned by those communities and benefit them directly.

“Naturally, we’re delighted to support an event recognising the hard work of those social businesses that do just this.”