fbpx Five City Leaders Clubs Pitch as part of Flagship Event at Barclays Canary Wharf - London Youth

03 April 2017

On Tuesday the 21st of March, five City Leaders teams came together at Barclays Canary Wharf to pitch for £600 as part of the City Leaders Community stage.

 We were delighted to host our flagship City Leaders community pitch event at Barclays Canary Wharf on Tuesday the 21st of March.  Five of our member organisations came along to pitch for the chance to get up to £600 of funding for their club to have a positive impact in their community. Members of the panel came from a number of different organisations in London:

  • Peter Estlin: Senior Advisor of Barclays, and Alderman and Sheriff of the City of London;
  • Alison Gowman, Chairman of the City Bridge Trust and Alderman of the City of London;
  • Judy Marsden, Director of Philanthropy at CVC Capital Partners;
  • Rosemary Watt-Wyness, CEO of London Youth;
  • Success Azubuike, member of London Youth’s Dare Youth Advisory Board

The panel sought to assess the strength of each project idea and pitch, taking into account the benefits that this would bring to their club and community, as well as to the young people themselves.

The night kicked off with a pitch from The Movement Factory, who ‘live, eat and breathe community dance.’ They plan to make a documentary about dance, exploring the physical and mental benefits of dance which they will then share with their community. They’ll also run a social media campaign in order to spread their message, highlighting the wide range of benefits that dance can bring both individuals and communities.

The Avenues were second to pitch, putting forward their plan to create a non-fiction comic strip that focuses on tackling youth violence. By distributing the comic in the local Doctors Surgery and schools, they hope to create a more positive perception of young people. Through local schools they are also seeking to encourage young people not to carry knives.

They were followed by Shpresa, who are going to run a community project at a local college helping people to fix their bikes. Working together as a club, they will learn new skills and use these to benefit others within the community. They believe that this will help them to challenge negative stereotypes of the Albanian population living in Croydon.

Baytree Centre pitched next, with their innovative idea to work in collaboration with those attending the local soup kitchen in Brixton. They plan on providing homeless people with disposable cameras in order to document their experience first-hand. This will then be presented to the public in an exhibition at a local cafe.

The final group to pitch was Reaching Higher, who are going to use the money to host a fun day. The day will offer a variety of activities, from a football tournament, and arts and crafts, to a raffle and face-painting. By raising money on the day, they also aim to fundraise for the mental health charity Young Minds UK.

Reaching higher club with chequeWe are delighted to say that the teams were all successful and will each be receiving funding for their community ideas! Over the next few months, the teams will be carrying out their community projects and we can’t wait to see these ideas become a reality.

The event at Barclays was an example of some of the fantastic work that can be done when the charity sector seeks corporate partners to collaborate with.  Commenting on the night, Terry Boyce, Head of Youth Action at London Youth said, ‘Our City Leaders event at Barclays is a great example of how the corporate world and charity sector can work in partnership to benefit the young people of London. Not only does this enable our City Leader clubs to come together to pitch ideas that will benefit their communities, but it also helps young people to develop their confidence and build new relationships. Some really innovative ideas were presented during the five pitches, so it will be brilliant to see these progress across the different communities in the city.’

We are very grateful to our funders – City Bridge Trust and Morrisons Foundation – for their brilliant support for City Leaders.

You can find out more about the City Leaders programme here.

Follow along with everything happening on City Leaders on Twitter.

More photos and videos from the Barclays event will follow soon, so stay tuned!

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