Eastleigh Advocacy Project has received a helping hand, thanks to a £10,265 donation from the Abbey National Charitable Trust.

The project provides a range of support services for people with learning disabilities. The inability to read, write and understand numbers prevents members from accessing basic services and facilities such as public transport.

Now, thanks to Abbey National's donation, the organisation has been able to buy teaching resources and pay for specialist basic skills tuition to improve members' reading, writing and financial literacy.

These new resources have helped the project to develop a pilot scheme to enable more than 100 people to learn and develop skills which many people take for granted.

A presentation was held recently to officially hand over the cheque and to acknowledge students' successful completion of stage one of the course.

Jim Bundy from the Solent Abbey National Community Partnership Group and Eastleigh MP David Chidgey were also on hand to see the students receive their certificates.