The Big Lottery Fund will award more than £7m to two UK charities to help rebuild communities in the Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan.

Children’s charities Plan UK and Save the Children will receive £3.9m and £3.2m respectively from the Big Lottery Fund’s International Communities programme.

The awards follow a consultation period with non-governmental organisations in the Philippines to identify how Big Lottery money could have the most long-term impact in rebuilding lives.

Peter Ainsworth, chair of the Big Lottery Fund UK, said its mission was to “support people most in need”.

Plan UK said it will work with Handicap International to provide development training and start-up funds for small businesses and work with 14,400 vulnerable people - including those with disabilities, young people out of work and female-headed households on the island of Panay.

Tanya Barron, chief executive of Plan UK, said the charity was: “extremely grateful to the Big Lottery Fund for this fantastic grant which will help create long-term sustainable jobs and ensure communities are more resilient and better prepared for future disasters”.

Save the Children announced that it will use the money to support 11,000 families, with projects focusing on economically marginalised families such as landless labourers, older people, disabled people and women. The project has a particular emphasis on restarting fishing and farming activities.

Joel Balaquit, development quality manager at Save the Children programme, said: “The Big Lottery Fund project is dedicated to longer term recovery of the poorest families who have been unable to refinance their livelihoods since the typhoon hit.

“With financial support and skills training on new livelihood methods and financial literacy, Save the Children will build capacity in business management at households and communities levels through a graduation scheme, which will then be taught by beneficiaries themselves to the rest of the community."