Youth organisations will receive £40 million to boost the skills
and life chances of young people living in disadvantaged areas,
Minister for Sport and Civil Society announced today.
The money is set to benefit 300,000 young people, providing new
opportunities for them to get involved in their communities,
support their personal development and get the skills and
confidence they need to enter the workplace.
It will be used to create new youth clubs in rural areas, expand
sports projects to build the confidence of young people
encouraging them to get active and increase services providing
support and guidance to young people.
The Youth Investment Fund - made up of government and National
Lottery players money from the from the Big Lottery
Fund - will be shared by 86 youth organisations in East
London, Liverpool City Region, West Midlands, Tees Valley and
Sunderland, Bristol & Somerset and Eastern Counties over the
next three years.
Minister for Civil Society , said:
This investment from the government and National Lottery
players will have a transformational effect on the lives of
some of our most disadvantaged young people. It will help
thousands who might otherwise have gone under the radar
flourish. Local voluntary and community youth organisations
already do so much fantastic work and this £40 million will
enrich the lives of many more young people throughout England.
Dawn Austwick, Chief Executive, Big Lottery Fund said:
The Youth Investment Fund is a welcome boost for the many great
community organisations that work with young people locally.
Money raised by National Lottery players creates opportunities
for young people to build on their talents and strengths and
the Youth Investment Fund is an important part of the jigsaw
for the youth sector.
Examples of projects that will receive funding to better the
lives of young people in their area are:
Youth Federation: The
Liverpool-based charity will receive £749,664 to improve youth
provision across Wirral, Halton and St Helens. Youth Federation
aims to reach out to nearly 5,000 local young people, providing
coding and digital skills to increase their employability and
improve mental health through sport.
Kite Trust: Cambridgeshire
LGBT charity will be awarded £193,554 to create four safe spaces
for 600 young people to receive advice and support on issues such
as isolation. The charity will also develop and implement an
education and corporate training programme for schools and
businesses in the region to promote equality and inclusion.
SkyWay: Located in Hackney,
the charity delivers a wide range of activities and programmes in
youth clubs, sports centres, parks and house estates. It will use
£407k in funding to improve its offer to young people by buying
new equipment such as cooking utensils, arts and crafts kits and
sports equipment, that will be used in support sessions. It will
also increase the number of young people being trained as young
leaders, a programme that is currently oversubscribed at Skyway.
The fund will allow the chosen organisations to expand the
services they provide to young people, and sustain them over the
coming years.
The New Philanthropy
Capital and the Centre for Youth
Impact will work alongside each of the 86 organisations
to evaluate the impact of their work with young people.
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS:
-
The Youth Investment Fund is equally funded by the Department
for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Big Lottery
Fund.
-
The Big Lottery Fund is the largest funder of community
activity in the UK. It puts people in the lead to improve
their lives and communities, often through small, local
projects. It is responsible for giving out 40% of the money
raised by National Lottery players for good causes. In
2016/17 it awarded £712.7 million and supported more than
13,814 projects across the UK for health, education,
environment and charitable purposes. Since June 2004 it has
awarded £8.5 billion to projects that change the lives of
millions of people.
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Breakdown of the bidding criteria (PDF, 88.6KB, 4
pages) .
-
The fund will be given to organisations in East London,
Liverpool City Region, West Midlands, Tees Valley and
Sunderland, Bristol & Somerset and Eastern Counties.
These areas were chosen based on measures of deprivation, to
make sure that the funding reaches areas of greatest need
