A CHARITY which helps women in Scotland's most deprived communities to start their own businesses is to double in size.

WEvolution has been awarded £200,000 from the Scottish Government to employ new staff and create twenty new groups across the country.

The charity, which already has 15 groups set up across Glasgow, Inverclyde, Edinburgh and Dundee, has also received £200,000 from the Church of Scotland to offer finance to the women in the form of interest-free loans up to £2000.

This will help to fund the start-up of businesses and allow the women to begin generating their own income.

WEvolution managing director Noel Mathias said: "This is a remarkable vindication of all the hard work we have been doing since this idea sprang from a Church of Scotland project in 2011.

"We took the example of what women in India were achieving with access to small loans and believed it could work here too. We have been proven right, and now we can quickly grow this model to benefit other women across Scotland."

The project is also branching out to help men too, with a group including males being set up in the Wester Hailes area of Edinburgh.

Some of the initiatives set up with the help of the scheme include a launderette, a sweet production enterprise and a home furnishings business.

Community Empowerment Minister Marco Biagi MSP, who announced the government funding, said: "WEvolution is an example of the type of project that we want to see flourish in Scotland. It is working with women in some of our most disadvantaged communities and giving them the skills and confidence to become entrepreneurs."

Scottish financial entrepreneur Jim Spowart, who is WEvolution's chairman, added: "We are grateful to the Church of Scotland and the Scottish Government for their support which allows WEvolution to continue its excellent work in communities that are called deprived but nonetheless are rich with people who are looking for ways to move on in life."