ARTS programmes for vulnerable and disadvantaged children across Oxfordshire are “chuffed to bits” after receiving a much-needed windfall from Children in Need.

Three projects based in Oxford – the Oxfordshire Play Association, Fusion Arts and Rosie’s Rainbow Fund – have received a share of a mammoth £115,288 this year.

The Oxfordshire Play Association (OPA) will spend its grant of £47,433 providing play days and activities in Rose Hill during the school holidays.

Play promotion officer Julia Graw, who handled the grant application, said: “We are absolutely made up. Children in Need has a hugely competitive bidding process.

“Although we thought we had put in a good project, you never know the result, so it was fantastic news.”

Youngsters in Rose Hill and their parents will benefit from play sessions laid on in the May half term, summer holidays and October half term.

They will be delivered in the heart of the estate, in front of Rose Hill Primary School at The Oval, with the help of primary school staff and Rose Hill Junior Youth Club.

As well as running play sessions for thousands of children, OPA also trains about 100 play workers to supervise sessions each year.

Ms Graw added: “We wanted to focus on areas of deprivation and we know that The Oval at Rose Hill is an under-used resource.

“Up until recently quite a lot of OPA’s funding has come from the local authority.

“But we are in the same position as many small organisations across Oxfordshire in terms of funding being cut and there is no doubt it’s a challenge. So we are chuffed to bits.”

Elsewhere East Oxford-based charity Fusion Arts has been given a whopping £55,387 to support its ‘Story Makers’ project. First set up in 2010 with the help of art psychotherapist Helen Edwards, the latest round of the project will help 100 schoolchildren with speech and communication issues express themselves through the arts.

An extra £12,468 has also been given to Rosie’s Rainbow Fund, which offers musical therapy to cheer up and inspire young patients at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

Sessions can take place in the hospital’s ‘Rainbow Room’, in the individual’s hospital room or even at their bedside.

Clare Cannock, BBC Children in Need regional head of the south and west, said: “All of the projects we fund make a tangible difference to young lives.”