Save the Children and British Gas celebrate achievements of young people participating in the Help Yourselves Programme

Save the Children and British Gas teamed up to create 'Help Yourselves' - a small grants scheme aimed at empowering and engaging children and young people who actively wanted to make a difference to their lives and the lives of their community.

Tuesday 15 January 2008

Help Yourselves was launched in 2005 and since then over 180 grants of £1,000 or £3,000 have been given to groups of  vulnerable children and young people to do something proactive to make their lives and communities better.

'Help Yourselves' was created especially for young people. It provides the opportunities and advice they need to change and improve their quality of life by being actively involved in making changes to the communities in which they live. Save the Children and British Gas created this project in order to help young people work together in partnership with adults to make their communities a better place to live.
 
Roxane Brown, Manager of Help Yourselves at Save the Children said, "Save the Children is very excited about celebrating the outstanding achievements of young people at this awards ceremony. We hope it will also encourage more people to get involved with the scheme as it goes from strength to strength in 2008. The Help Yourselves grants encourage children living in deprived areas to actively participate in making changes within their communities and to their lives. Save the Children particularly welcomes applications from groups who may face discrimination and disadvantage in  society because of issues relating to, for example, geography, gender, ethnicity or disability."

The awards ceremony also marks the start of the next stage of Help Yourselves - where bigger grants are going to be given out during 2008. The new phase will include 40 awards of £1000, 8 awards of £5000 and 3 awards of £10,000 - all of which will help children  themselves set up lasting projects in their communities and really have a say in what goes on in their lives.

There will be a variety of awards given out on January 15 including the Outstanding Achievement Award, the Community Impact Award and the Staying Safe A ward.

The winning groups include:

  • A group of children from Brixton who have formed a  peer mentor outreach group - offering hope and support to other young people in the area at risk of joining gangs and committing street violence. The group resulted in a reduction of crime in the area. 
  • A group of isolated young mums from Caerphilly in Wales who joined up to produce a magazine in which they wrote about their experience of being a teenage mum - the magazine was then distributed to other young people, helping them learn about the reality of being a teenage mother. The success of the project has meant that the young mums from this very deprived community have secured further funding to produce more copies of the magazine, distribute it more widely while also building partnerships with other agencies to push for change at a regional level and give educational workshops on sexual health and the realities of teenage pregnancy. 
  • A series of workshops which engaged young women  from Walsall at serious risk of sexual exploitation and prostitution - 19 out of the 20 girls are now back in education or work.

MPs from across Great Britain are expected to attend to celebrate the successes of the young people in their constituencies. Ed Milliband has been invited and the winners of the outstanding achievement award will sit with him, discuss their thoughts about their lives and ask him questions. Media are invited to attend to report on this and the awards ceremony.
 
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Notes to Editors
 
If you would like to attend the awards please contact Kate Redman on 0207 012 6863 or email k.redman@savethechildren.org.uk
 
For more information on Help Yourselves please visit www.helpyourselves.org.uk