Community Links believes that every child can succeed, but that some are denied the opportunity. Homelessness, parental alcoholism, unemployment, drugs, crime, and a lack of proper facilities for learning and outdoor activities are issues that many young people in Newham have to deal with every single day. This pushes education to the side and makes learning tough. Community Links has been committed to supporting and engaging these disadvantaged young people for over 30 years, through a network of practical projects. One of these is our education project which works with young people excluded from mainstream education. Our first classroom opened in 1995 - taking 20 vulnerable young people off the street. Since then our education programme has grown with increasing numbers benefiting each year and the model being observed and copied in communities elsewhere. Community Links is now concentrating on establishing a new school based on this successful education programme. The plan: - To formally register as a school which will operate on the model of a college with campuses at five different sites - To provide an alternative education programme for over 100 excluded young people each year, which Community Links has developed over the past decade based on the standard national curriculum and inspected by OFSTED - To ensure that every young person ends with qualifications - To build a package of individual and group support to address the students' learning and self development needs, ability levels and curriculum interest areas - To establish links with a university, raising learning opportunities and aspirations Community Links needs to raise the start up costs for the new school to become a unique academy and beacon for the education of young people needing a second chance. With your support we can establish this and provide future generations of young people in east London the chance to turn their lives around. It will also benefit similar young people around the country as it becomes a model and centre of excellence for other communities to follow. "Claire joined Community Links Education Programme at the age of 14 after permanent exclusion from school. Abused when young she had been self harming and had a negative attitude to school staff. Following intensive work around issues such as self identity, behaviour and relationships, she took national exams with Community Links. Then following positive reintegration into school she successfully gained six GCSEs and has now secured a fulltime place at Further Education college."