Awards and competitions

Arts & Health South West has announced the launch of the Arts & Health South West Awards sponsored by the Fine Family Foundation, designed to celebrate inspirational arts and health work in the South West.

Recognising, supporting and promoting innovation in Arts & Health in the West Midlands.

praXis Creative Remedies Arts and Health Awards is a new awards scheme for artists, organisations, students or groups providing an opportunity for work to be recognised, promoted and shared with others.

Winners will be awarded a place on a professional development programme and support for the development of a practical project.

Entries are invited from organisations providing services to vulnerable or socially excluded people including supported and sheltered housing, adult social care, criminal justice, social housing, and community-based services.

The Design Council and Technology Strategy Board have launched the Keeping Connected Business Challenge as part of a new programme, Independence Matters, which will demonstrate how design-led solutions can enhance independent living and quality of life for older people, with and without long term conditions.

The Keeping Connected Business Challenge is intended to stimulate the development of new business ideas that better connect older adults. The initiative has a prize fund of £495,000 to support the development of innovative service ideas over six months.

The One Handed Musical Instrument Trust has announced that the competition is now open for applications.

Video extracts from the launch of the competition can be viewed at w: www.ohmi.org.uk/presentation-videos.html

For more information visit w: www.ohmi.org.uk

The Design Council and the Department of Health are running a competition to rethink life with dementia.  One in three of us who live to 65 will have some form of dementia before we die.

The challenge aims to help people with dementia and their carers live easier, better planned and more enjoyable lives. £360,000 and a programme of professional support is available to make selected projects happen.

w: www.designchallenges.ning.com

The winners of the Royal Society for Arts and Health Awards 2011 have now been announced. The award scheme was established in 2008 in association with Canterbury Christ Church University and its Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health. The theme of this year’s awards was the contribution of arts, music and cultural organisations to community health and healthcare. The Society received over 40 nominations from across the UK.

Winners of the 2011 awards are:

The IMPACT Awards have been running since 1997 and are designed to recognise and reward charities that are doing excellent work to improve people’s health. They are funded by GlaxoSmithKline and managed in partnership with The King’s Fund.

The awards are open to registered charities that are at least three years old, working in a health-related field in the UK, with a total annual income between £10,000 and £1.5 million.

Voluntary Arts has announced the Epic Awards 2011, designed to shine a spotlight on the excellent work taking place within more than 70,000 voluntary and amateur art and craft groups around the UK and Republic of Ireland.

The Awards give groups an opportunity to raise the profile of their work as well as the chance to win a package of prizes including training, equipment and publicity, as well as attending a winners’ reception in early 2012.

w: www.epicawards.co.uk

Ten UK-based organisations are competing for public votes in the Best Arts Project category of The National Lottery Awards 2011. The Awards are an annual search to find the UK’s favourite Lottery-funded projects and recognise the difference that these organisations – both big and small – make to local communities.