13 charities throughout Tyneside and Northumberland have been awarded £600,000 worth of Children in Need grants, which will help them to continue charity projects in their home region.



The 13 Tyneside and Northumberland charities that were successfully awarded Children in Need grants are: Longbenton Youth Project, Berwick Youth Project, Gateway into the Community, North Tyneside Disability Forum, Crossroads Gateshead, Radio Lollipop at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary, South Tyneside Asylum Seekers and Refugee Church Help, North of England Refugee Service, Escape Intervention Services, Bubble Foundation at Newcastle General Hospital, African Community Advice North East, West End Women and Girls Centre, an the Benwell Young People's Development Group.



One of the charities, the Longbenton Youth Project has catered to young people between 14 and 25 for 14 years. As youth worker Kelly Bland explains, the project aims to enrich the lives of young people by offering them practical help and advice. She describes the project as "all about change for the better in the young people's lives" It is about arming them with skills, experience and knowledge so that they can go on." The youth service has just been awarded a Children in Need grant of £85,544, which will help to enrich the lives of young people throughout the area by paying for a detached youth worker's post for three years. Kelly said that the Children in Need grant is ‘crucial’ to the future of their project and the continuation of their good work.



Children in Need is a BBC charity, which raises millions of pounds via an annual television charity appeal. Each year, people throughout the country get involved by performing wacky sponsored events like sitting in a bath of cold baked beans, enduring a day-long silence, or wearing fancy to work, and many others pledge money over the telephone. There is a fundraising night of TV associated with the event, which is presented by Terry Wogan, and Children in Need’s infamous one-eyed mascot, Pudsey Bear. The amount raised by Children in Need gets more impressive every year, and all of the money raised is distributed among a range of children’s charities nationwide.