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Unlike other projects in the youth work sector, we aim to provide face-to-face and online mentoring to support young people in London youth clubs at risk of becoming involved in antisocial behaviour, gangs, drugs and drug dealing. Adding value to existing youth club activities, provision will be based around monthly "activity Saturdays" for young people and their mentors. The focus of which will be team building, community service and skill building.

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Categories

  • Education/Training/Employment Education/​Training/​Employment
  • Beneficiaries

    • Women & Girls Women & Girls
    • Young People (18-30) Young People (18-30)
    • Other Other

    Situation

    Reasons behind the project: We believe this is an extremely worthwhile project as there are many young people (men and a growing number of women) who are at risk of disengaging with school, unable to find jobs, and likely to end up on welfare. They are at risk of becoming involved in antisocial behaviour, gangs, drugs and drug dealing. A common issue expressed in research in this area has been about lack of skills and opportunities for employment. By working on employability skills (face to face and online coaching activities) they will be able to build up the basic skills necessary to help them find employment in the local area (perhaps by linking up with London government initiatives). Another aspect of this is increasing young people's engagement in society by engendering a sense of support, and an idea of their responsibility within the community, which would be worked on during the skills days through community action and so on. Although youth work is a busy sector and there is substantial good work being done in these areas, we believe a programme of skill building days supported by ementoring has the potential to underpin these services and provide a more continuous and coherent supportive intervention, adding value to the existing work being done by the youth work sector. The project: Working with youth clubs to add value to their existing programmes,by delivering a combination of face to face and online mentoring. This will be based around monthly "activity Saturdays" for young people and their mentors, the focus of which will be team building, community service and skill building. This will be supported by ementoring for the young people, centred on building soft skills and employability skills, preparing and supporting them to plan for the future. Youth workers will act as advisers to mentors (in a similar capacity to that being done in the student parents project) ensuring that the ementoring programme is effectively delivered and embedded within the youth club activities. A further extension of this could be to join up different youth-groups from areas of London which have traditionally been involved in aggressive cross-gang activity, such as Brixton and Peckham, to try to bridge gaps between them. End goals for the mentee: Increased confidence, motivation and aspirations Reduction in antisocial behaviour Clearer understanding of opportunities available to them Improvement in communication, employability and life-skills Financial breakdown: BrightsideUNIAID is currently exploring this idea in more detail. We estimate a budget of £50,000 - £100,000 will be required to deliver face-to-face and online mentoring over a 1 year period in select London youth clubs. If you are keen to be involved, would like to partner with us or are keen to help fund please contact us.

    Solution

    100%
    Categories

  • Education/Training/Employment Education/​Training/​Employment
  • Beneficiaries

    • Women & Girls Women & Girls
    • Young People (18-30) Young People (18-30)
    • Other Other