More than 30 local groups have applied to the Community Vaccine Fund, which aims to tackle vaccine hesitancy in communities with low vaccine uptake and support local residents to get jabbed.
Successful applicants will need to demonstrate how their planned initiatives will help increase vaccination uptake among their users or in the wider community.
Additional payments of £35 will be given to organisations for every person who receives a jab through their initiative.
Registered organisations can apply for funding by visiting Community Vaccine Fund – Get Wolverhampton Vaccinated! The closing date for applications has been extended to Thursday 30 June, 2022.
John Denley, Wolverhampton’s Director of Public Health, said: “The Community Vaccine Fund is enabling us to improve engagement with our communities where Covid-19 vaccine uptake is at its lowest.”
One local organisation which has already received the grant is TLC College in Dunstall, which has reached over 100 people with its Covid-19 vaccination promotional project.
A spokesperson said: “We have been delivering this valuable message through our ESOL classes, employability workshops, social media, leaflets, staff and family interventions, and used bilingual staff to speak to our diverse service users.
“We have had many interesting discussions, faced some sceptical and uninformed viewpoints as well as real vaccination fear and some genuine medical issues. Our interactions have remained respectful and amicable, regardless of individual beliefs and the weight of our factual knowledge is slowly but surely changing perceptions within the community.”
Funding for the Community Vaccine Fund comes from a £185,000 top up grant from the Community Vaccine Champions Programme, which is providing a total of £22.3 million funding across areas showing the lowest rates of Covid-19 vaccination uptake.
