UK: Welsh Co-operative voted Children’s Champion

UCAN Perform, a creative arts co-operative for visually impaired young people, has battled off competition to shine through as one of the UK’s favourite Lottery projects – scooping the Children’s Champion trophy at this year’s National Lottery Awards. The National Lottery Awards celebrate and recognise the hard work and dedication of people who use Lottery funding to make a real difference to communities across the UK. This year’s awards attracted nearly 100,000 public votes, with the winners announced during a special National Lottery Day programme, ‘Everyone’s a winner’ on BBC1 on 23 September. Bernard Latham and Jane Walker set up UCAN so that children with visual impairment from across Wales could access the arts. With support from Development Officer Jayesh Parmar and lottery funding from the Arts Council of Wales, visually impaired children from five schools took part in drama workshops which concluded with a performance. www.ucanproductions.org