By Stephenie Omond-McGarry 

A STENTON business woman has received £5,000 to boost her project to improve the lives of young women around East Lothian.

Celia Hodson is one of 16 people from across Scotland to be awarded funding from the Social Entrepreneurs Fund.

The awards were given by Firstport, Scotland’s start up social enterprise development agency.

The funding was announced today (Thursday)to correspond with Social Enterprise Day, a global day to raise awareness about the impact social enterprises are having around the world and in smaller communities.

Celia received the £5,000 Start It award to push forward her business Hey Girls, which specialises in the selling of organic sanitary towels on a ‘Buy One, Give One’ model.

The business aims to highlight the importance of sanitary products and make it affordable to all young women.

She said: “Period Poverty is a high profile campaign at the moment receiving significant political interest and debate. Although this has helped raise consensus around the need for change in provision in schools and the need for support for low-income families, the solutions to date could create a dependency on public sector funding.

"Hey Girls ‘Buy One, Give One’ model builds a viable and sustainable solution.”

Projects that were also funded as part of this latest round include a clothing brand designed by the homeless community in Glasgow, an environmental services business providing training and employability skills in Campbeltown and a project which aims to train young people who are disengaged to deliver sports coaching to children across the Forth Valley area.

Josiah Lockhart, chief executive of Firstport said: “Social enterprise is a sustainable route to tackling some of Scotland’s most challenging social issues.

"Businesses and communities across the country are seeing profit not as a way to line people's pockets, but as a tool to invest in the support and resiliency of our communities. I’m delighted that Firstport is able to support a new generation of entrepreneurs to kick start the businesses of the future.”