Heroes Rights Ltd is celebrating after The Lottery Fund awarded £500,000 over three years to set up and run CUBE – Community United in Barry 4 Everyone.

CUBE will deliver support and services in Barry for individuals and families who are affected by domestic abuse, mental health and addictions.

CUBE is a collective of 28 people, mostly Barry residents. CUBE is unique: all its services, activities, staff and volunteers have experience of either delivering services to the Barry community and/or lived experiences in accessing local support.

CUBE is your community working together to help and support Barry.

Background

A little over two years ago, Barry's Tammi Owen was moved to act. Tammi recognised that her community was struggling to provide purposeful, cooperative support to local people, families and their children. Tammi wanted to set up a one-stop support centre – a safe and welcoming place where families and individuals could access the combined services they needed under one roof. Tammi imagined a place that people of Barry felt was theirs, a place not only for support and

services, but also a safe space for fun for everyone.

Tammi's idea brought together 28 local people, all passionate about the positive impact of a strong community.

These 28 formed the founding CUBE board which, over the last year, has helped plan, shape and develop CUBE from an idea into a reality.

CUBE will be a cooperative where every person attending the centre can apply for membership, and every member can help shape what CUBE does.

Wales Cooperative is working with the boards to ensure that this becomes fundamental to CUBE.

The National Lottery Community Fund distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes - it is the largest community funder in the UK.

This new funding means that thanks to National Lottery players, the people of Barry will be able to access services run by the community for the community.

A spokesperson for CUBE says: "None of us expected that we would be setting up in the face of COVID-19 impact and restrictions.

However, our community board has been amazing and has shown real resilience.

We are determined to deliver our services from new premises when restrictions have been lifted"

In the meantime, CUBE is working to establish where and what the community's greatest unmet needs are, and is working with local services and organisations to bring people together.

Tammi Owen, founder of CUBE says: "We're delighted that the National Lottery Community Fund has recognised our work and our vision in this way.

"Now, thanks to National Lottery players we will be able to work with local people, groups and organisations to become experts in their own lives.

"CUBE is here to help people to develop tools and techniques to make decisions on how they receive support and what support they wish to access.

Most important to us at CUBE is that we will achieve this by working together, a place for the community run by the community of Barry.

"We would like to thank the Cardiff Lottery Team for their support and belief in CUBE and we look forward to working with local partners in providing much-needed activities and services to the people of Barry.

Alun Cairns MP for the Vale of Glamorgan said: "At this challenging time, it's amazing to see the community continuing to work on long-term projects like CUBE and huge credit goes to Tammi Owen and her team who have been dedicated and determined to make this happen. They have secured a tremendous level of funding, which can go a long way to supporting individuals and families locally. This can be a major asset to Barry."