Camster wind farm provides £30,000 for Caithness education and training fund

A CAITHNESS-wide education and training fund has been set up with £30,000 from the company behind the Camster wind farm.

The money will be used to enable local residents to apply for grants of up to £750 to help them increase their employment potential. RWE’s Camster Wind Farm Fund Panel has allocated the cash to establish the new fund.

It will complement already established education and training grant programmes which are available in some community council areas and administered by the Foundation Scotland charity.

They are: RWE’s Bad á Cheò Wind Farm Education and Training Fund, which made 21 awards over the past year and covers the community council areas of Latheron, Lybster and Clyth, Halkirk District and Watten; the Stroupster Wind Farm Education and Training Fund (Dunnet and Canisbay) which made 16 awards over the past year; the

Tannach and District Wind Farm Education and Training Fund, which made five awards over the past 12 months.

Residents of these five community council areas can continue to apply to their local funds. However, the newly established fund will help residents elsewhere in Caithness, so that they too can access support from wind farm funds for further education and training opportunities.

Under the new Caithness-wide fund, awards of up to £750 will be made for a training course. The purpose of the fund is to help individuals improve their employment potential. Bursaries can support a wide range of courses, including full or part-time courses and short vocational courses, such as apprenticeships, undergraduate degrees and postgraduate qualifications (although not PhDs), LVG/HVG licences and many others.

Foundation Scotland now hopes that other donors will be encouraged to contribute additional funds with the aim of build a long-term Caithness-wide education and training fund.

Eilidh Coll, Community Funds Adviser at Foundation Scotland said: "Through this new fund, we will be able to offer support to people who otherwise might not be able to undertake a training course. The existing education and training funds have been operating for around three years and have helped many people achieve their goals and aspirations. The support has been wide ranging, and many individuals have used their bursaries to access a new career such as undertaking HGV training. "

She added: "Some people have sought to diversify their existing work, for example through a cheese making course which enabled a local crofter to bring their cheese making in-house, rather than having to outsource the service. Now funding from RWE’s Camster wind farm is going to make these kinds of opportunity available to people across the whole of Caithness."

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