Leaveners hit by funding withdrawal

Quaker arts organisation faces a loss of funding

Participants in a Leaveners event. | Photo: Courtesy of the Leeaveners.

The main funder of the Leaveners, the Birmingham-based Quaker arts organisation, has withdrawn its sponsorship.

The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) has provided core funding for staffing and overheads for thirty years. A change in JRCT’s funding priorities means that Leaveners no longer meet their remit.

Leaveners director José Forrest-Tennant told the Friend: ‘We are grateful to JRCT and what their funds have afforded us over the last thirty years – but the UK funding climate has changed. We see this loss of funding as an opportunity to develop – it is crucial that we receive funds if we are to continue as an organisation.’

The arts organisation hopes to develop a two-year project of youth theatre in Meeting houses, to improve social cohesion between Quakers and Muslims in Birmingham and a leadership programme empowering young Muslim women to combat Islamophobia and cultural inequality.

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