Heritage project wins Pool company £15,000 (From Falmouth Packet)

Heritage project wins Pool company £15,000

10:00am Sunday 14th October 2012 in News

A Pool-based project celebrating Cornwall’s heritage has been awarded £15,000 by bank Santander.

Azook was one of seven ‘social enterprises’ in the South West to win money in Santander’s Social Enterprise Development Awards.

The money will be used to develop a new series of Cornish heritage audio-visual products.

Azook looks to connect people with their cultural heritage and the compnay’s Sense of Place online library provides learning materials to schools.

Running alongside this, the website cornishmemory.com is an online audio-visual archive of Cornish heritage, featuring images, oral recordings and film footage.

Claire White, Azook director said: “Our work indicates that cultural heritage products and services bring communities together. The Santander award will help us to grow and we have ambitious plans for our enterprise – we’re aiming to run 40 community roadshows, train over 60 volunteers in digital skills and support teachers and pupils across the South West.”

Alongside the prize money, Azook will receive access to support from Santander including mentoring programmes, funding for internships and university business courses and training.

Julian Alexander, Santander regional director, said: “Azook carried out a comprehensive audit of the potential for their new enterprise and ran a pilot to test the appeal of the products. They had an overwhelming response which confirmed the high level of interest that exists in Cornish heritage not just in this area but across Britain and beyond.

“We’re very pleased to be able to fund the development of the new products and services which in turn will generate income for them to support their community activities.”