The Camre Bursary Scheme

The scheme has been up and running since July 2009 - since then it has helped over 300 individuals by awarding over £190,000 (an average of £630 per person) to help in accessing education, learning and developmental opportunities in many areas.

A report into the impact and effectiveness of the Bursary is available from the menu on the left.

The scheme is currently accepting applications for funding.

Any individual who wants to apply to this discretionary 'pot' for financial help towards any eligible expenditure must have undertaken and be able to evidence some voluntary work they have completed. Voluntary work must be undertaken in the community for the benefit of the community.

All applications received must be accompanied by a signed statement evidencing the number of hours of voluntary work which has been undertaken and completed - any application which is received without this will not be processed and will be returned.

The number of hours of voluntary work required will depend upon the amount of funding being applied for - this is outlined in the table below:

NB - All volunteering work undertaken and used in the submission of an application must have already been completed, evidenced and counter signed by the individuals support worker. Volunteering work must have been completed within the last 12 months for it to be considered.

Please use this log for this purpose

Volunteering while you are in prison?
We will need some kind of confirmation from staff at the prison that your hours are 'above and beyond' what is required of you as part of your sentence plan or prison-based job.
Please do use your application to tell us more about how your volunteering is helping others, and what you enjoy most about doing it.

Volunteering in the community?
Tell us about how your volunteering is helping your community in your application - we would love to hear about what you have learned from your volunteering too.

Unsure whether the project you are working with would count as volunteering hours for a CAMRE application?
Ask your support worker to contact us to discuss it.

In such an instance, the whole of the application could be approved, but the funds will be released on the successful evidenced completion of each part of the whole course.

It is each applicant's personal responsibility to ensure any volunteering work undertaken by them does not conflict or have an impact on any benefits they are claiming.

The Camre Bursary Scheme will not fund applications where it is believed there is an alternative funding source available.

The Camre Bursary Scheme should be applied for only when all other possible sources of funding have been exhausted.

No Automatic Approval

All correctly completed applications will be considered by the bursary scheme panel members.

As with all 'discretionary' funds - the panel reserve the right to seek additional information where deemed necessary.

Applications are not automatically approved and the panel are not answerable to applicants with regard to any decision concerning the funds.

The panel will not enter into discussions or explanations concerning applications which are not approved.

Once the panel have considered the applications received, they will notify the successful applicant via their support/key worker within one week.

Due to the number of applications received and the careful monitoring requirements of the scheme there is an expectation that the support/key worker will be the person who will be dealt with following the approval of an application form and not the individual applicants.