More than £10,000 has been given to a charity that focuses on sexual health and helping people living with HIV.

The money was donated by the The Devonshire Freemasons to the Eddystone Trust which offers a range of services in the South West.

It is hoped the money, which totalled £10,560, will help the charity cope with the increased difficulties it has encountered during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Eddystone Trust is an independent charity that has been operating for nearly 30 years.

It delivers a range of services to people that loosely comes under the heading of sexual health, encompassing health education, provision of prevention services and much needed support to people living with HIV with some services also relate to wider sexual health.

The current pandemic leaves the clients they support in the category of high risk to infection from Covid-19.

The grant was made to support a one-year project.

The bulk of the resource required is for extra staffing costs; the groups need to be developed and coordinated with the need to train and support volunteers.

To achieve this, they need to employ somebody for one-and-a-half days a week, also needed are support equipment comprising of five computer tablets plus five sim cards.

The grant from Devonshire and Somerset Freemasons came through the Masonic Charitable Foundation, which is funded by Freemasons, their families and friends, from across England and Wales and the David Medlock Family Trust.

In response to the extraordinary need created by the coronavirus pandemic, Freemasonry is providing special funding of £2.75million for projects helping those who are particularly affected by the virus.

This extra money comes on top of the estimated £45million given to charity every year by Freemasons

Peter Keaty, the assistant provincial grand master of the Devonshire Freemason, said that one of the main objectives of Freemasonry is to support those less fortunate within our society, the work carried out by the Eddystone Trust and their volunteers is so important, especially at this time and we congratulate them on their commitment to their chosen charity.