City Bridge Trust continues support for youth social action
25 April 2019
City Bridge Trust, the City of London Corporation’s charitable funder, has awarded £390,000 in funding to London Youth to support our flagship youth social action programme, City Leaders.
The grant, which will be delivered over three years, will enable us to support over 800 young Londoners to get involved in social action projects in their local community. The programme will run through our member network of over 450 community youth organisations that are embedded in communities and have strong relationships with young people.
The funding will allow us to provide specialist delivery staff, pan-London partnerships and evaluation expertise to the youth organisations involved in the programme.
City Leaders has been running since 2016 and focuses on engaging young people who don’t otherwise get involved in social action.
Since its launch:
- 80% of the young people who take part in City Leaders come from BAME backgrounds.
- Recruitment has focused on young people who would not normally experience such opportunities, with two-thirds of London Youth’s members located in the poorest 30% of areas.
With figures showing a 44% reduction in the capital’s youth services since 2011-12 (‘London’s Lost Youth Services’, 2019) this funding provides vital support to London’s young people and youth services. City Leaders develops young people’s leadership skills and City Bridge Trust’s continued support will help to ensure that the capital’s future leaders reflect its rich diversity.
Alison Gowman, Chair of the City of London Corporation’s City Bridge Trust Committee, said:
“Over the last few years this charity has done a fantastic job of harnessing, supporting and developing leadership potential in many disadvantaged young Londoners.
“This programme is paving the way for our future leaders and over the coming years will be targeting the harder to reach young people, something which we are very keen to support.
“Tackling disadvantage across the capital is essential to making London a fairer and better place in which to live.”
Rosemary Watt-Wyness, Chief Executive, London Youth, said:
“City Bridge Trust’s continued support of London Youth will enable us to work with hundreds more young Londoners, many of whom have never engaged in social action projects before, to work together in tackling issues in their local communities, over the next three years.
“Our network of over 450 members support tens of thousands of young people each year and with cuts of over £22 million from youth service budgets across the capital since 2011, this funding has given a much-needed boost to the youth sector and the young people we work with.”
Click here to download the press release.
Find out more about our youth social action programmes here.
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