FireCloud was started by a few young ‘Bankies’ in 2007. 16 years on, we work with 500 people annually from Whitecrook, Drumry, Linnvale, Parkhall, Hardgate, Faifley, Dalmuir, Old Kilpatrick, and Duntocher (and another 2500 people across Glasgow). We are based in Our Holy Redeemer Church House, Clydebank. We will use the money to employ a sessional youth development worker to help grow our current youth work into a sustainable ‘academy’ style programme for teens (11-18).  11-18 year olds in Clydebank and the surrounding areas will benefit from this funding as will the families of the teen participants, the adult volunteers who help deliver the programme and the wider community. If our young people are given a chance to be a force for good in our community then the ripples of that goodness will affect the whole community.

We serve the whole of Clydebank as we are the last Scout Group in the area since 12th Scout Group folded a few years ago . We have 3 age groups of young people being Beavers ( 5-8 year olds) Cubs (8-11year olds) and scouts (11-14 year olds). We were founded in 1939 and our hall was donated to us then. The Scout movement is a volunteer lead organisation with all leaders being volunteers. Our kitchen is needing updated to train all our our young people to have skills in the kitchen from maintaining the kitchen, cleaning, washing, preparing food and presenting meals in an individual basis and a group basis to ensure they can prepare meals at camps and holidays plus learn how to cope in life. There are 20 young people Within each group and 4 leaders per group totalling roughly 75-80 people.  We would like to build a new kitchen which will be to the benefit of young people in Clydebank.

Ben View Resource Centre is a charity based in Dumbarton. A weekly group for young people aged 8-15, providing a variety of sports and physical exercise. We will also be educating young people on the importance of physical movement for mental health. We will be offering a variety in the hope that each young person finds a sport which they enjoy and will continue out with the group. 

At Mini Messy Monsters we provide messy and sensory place for all children as children with ASN could come and the parents could relax due to there being no “structure” to messy and sensory play so children were not seen as being “naught and disruptive” !. We hope in the near future to put on more days during the week also, the best thing about class is that we are accessible for all children and families in particular who have more than one child have somewhere they can take all their  children at the same time, classes are normally for the dreaded terms “asn children” or “mainstream children” and at our classes we do not believing in separating children and all children should play together! The problem is unfortunately there is not many places that are accessible for all children. Our numbers vary each session but we can take up to 40 children per session. The monies will be spent on buying accessible Messy and sensory equipment for all children, along with helping us to provide our new Makaton song and story class and accessible dance class for all children.

Our Social Group brings together autistic people (aged 18-35) from across West Dunbartonshire. The group reduces social isolation among autistic people living locally, and supports them to become more active in the community. Our Social Group is run by a specialist support worker and 3 volunteers. The grant would cover the costs of the staff involved, plus a range of social group activities. This will benefit up to 15 autistic people aged between 18 – 35 years who live in West Dunbartonshire.