WHYC volunteering for a healthy future

Total Amount Requested: £30,000

We are requesting financial support to expand our young volunteers programme adding mental health and self-care components whilst continuing vital work based courses. Young people (aged 16-18) will volunteer, with expenses paid, to support over 100 other young people, primarily during school holiday periods.

Our client group is 80% BAME and 50% female and the intake for this programme will reflect that. It will also include Looked After young people, those with SEND diagnoses, those on Special Guardianship arrangements etc.

They will also access training, including, but not limited to : Mindfulness, reflexology, peer massage, SRE peer education etc alongside accredited skills based training courses such as First aid, Fire Safety, Food Safety Safeguarding, Lifeguard courses, trampoline coaching etc.

The programme is specifically designed to equip local young people with both soft and quantifiable skills to support their access to tertiary education and/or the workplace.

We have real evidence that young people have been able to use these qualifications to improve their life chances and also that running such courses within a volunteer programme, in house at the youth club where young people feel safe and secure, has a clear effect on other young people who are keen to volunteer as they become eligible and view participants as positive role models.

We use external providers who have significant experience working with young people who face additional challenges.

The expenses element is crucial. Though small amounts (up to £20 a day) it gives young people their first taste of earned money and their first feeling of being in charge of their own money. We have been very impressed with how young people prioritise equipment for college over nights out etc.

The project will help the local community in that all participants will have useful qualifications that can be used locally and will be more employable locally too. A clear example of this is that 5 of our young people now work as lifeguards in Southwark Leisure Centres (including Peckham) . It's a course they would be unable to fund themselves but we can support them and it helps not only their on physical mental and financial well being but also supports the potential health and well being of all Southwark residents.

We have an annual Awards evening where young people will receive their certifications in front of an invited audience.