National Lottery Award winners celebrate

The National Lottery Awards are the annual search to find the UK's favourite Lottery-funded projects. iVillage sponsored the Health category and attended a star-studded ceremony to celebrate with the winners.

The award for the UK's Best Health Project, in association with iVillage.co.uk, went to Derry-based Access to Citizenship, and was presented by journalist and musician Alex James.

Access to Citizenship beat hundreds of UK projects to win the prestigious title at The National Lottery Awards 2010, broadcast live from London's Roundhouse on BBC One and was hosted by John Barrowman, Saturday 4 September.

Representatives from Access to Citizenship mingled with celebrity guests including Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch, Boxer Amir Khan, actor Larry Lamb, Countryfile's Matt Baker and Julia Bradbury, and William Roache MBE (aka Coronation Street's Ken Barlow).

Access to Citizenship, managed by Destined, works with young people with learning disabilities in North West Ireland, to enable them to play a full part in society. The project offers further education options, advice and training to find employment, as well as personal and social development courses.

Accepting the award, Dermot O'Hara from Destined said: 'It is an absolute honour to have won this award. Lottery funding has been crucial to our project and the awards have given us a great opportunity to highlight how we've put our funding to good use, and show anyone who has ever played the Lottery the difference their money makes. We have received fantastic support throughout all stages of the competition and I would like to thank everyone who has voted for us.'

The awards were launched in January this year and over 800 Lottery-funded projects entered, judges then selected 10 projects for each category. Following the first round of public voting, the Health category nominees were whittled down to three finalists:

- Access To Citizenship
- The Food For Life Partnership - supporting schools, young people, their parents and communities to grow and cook local, seasonal and organic food and eat healthily
- Cruse Bereavement Care: Young Cruse Project - offering bereaved young people individual support and a safe space where they can begin to work through their grief with the help of Young Cruse Volunteers.

National Lottery players raise £25 million a week for projects all across the UK. All the projects entered in the competition had already received Lottery funding and the Awards recognise the difference that these projects make to local communities, and celebrate the achievements of the people behind them.

In addition to the Lottery funding that it has already received, the winning project in each of the seven categories received a £2,000 cash prize to spend on its project

The six other winners of the 2010 National Lottery Awards are:

- Best Arts Project: Beacon Hill Film Project
- Best Education Project: HMS Cavalier
- Best Environment Project: Bumblebee Conservation Trust
- Best Heritage Project: Isle of Wight Railway Restoration
- Best Sport Project: Children's Able and Disabled Sport
- Best Voluntary/Charity Project: Little Havens Children's Hospice

All voting was independently adjudicated and verified by Electoral Reform Services.

Full details on all this year's winners can be found at Lottergoodcauses.org.uk/awards