An organisation which provides help for victims of racial discrimination across Oxfordshire has been given a £225,000 lifeline just months after funding was cut.

The Oxfordshire Racial Equalities Council, OREC, has been given cash for the next three years by the Capacity Builders Improving Reach programme.

Now the organisation will be able to employ more staff and support dozens of smaller groups that help ethnic minorities, refugees, travellers and faith groups.

Director Patrick Tolani said he would have been "incapacitated" without the additional funds.

He said: "The future is secure for us now and also one of the very important things about this funding is that having it leverages other funding."

Currently OREC helps support the cases of about 150 people who have suffered racial discrimination each year - but Mr Tolani said there were an estimated 2,000 in the county who could benefit from the service.

The organisation had received financial support from Oxford city and Oxfordshire county councils to the tune of nearly £50,000 a year.

But the county council funding was cut in March 2007, with the council's corporate strategies manager Adrian Harper Smithcor citing "concerns relating to the executive committee" and an inability to retain staff as the reason.

The city council withdrew its funding in March 2008, saying its programme was oversubscribed and OREC was "low-scoring" compared with other applications.

Mr Tolani said: "Essentially we work to reduce or even eliminate racial discrimination in Oxfordshire and to promote equal oppor- tunities.

"Thanks to this grant, our work is going to develop not only around race but also around other equality standards, talking about age, gender, sexual orientation, religion and things like that."

More than 1,000 organisations applied for a slice of £17m and OREC was one of just 72 to get funding - the only group in Oxfordshire and one of only five in the South East.

The organisation will now look to recruit two new members of staff, one of whom will become an outreach worker.

Mr Tolani said: "I am very excited about the opportunities this money will give us."