The Chancellor announced that 2m was to be made available to recognise the projects that had made the best use of their Youth Opportunity and Youth Capital Funds and that could benefit most from further investment.
A year on and now rebranded as Actions Speak Louder ..., the first winners of the awards received cheques of up to 45,000 at an awards ceremony held in central London on 29 March.
The 15 winners have been whittled down from a list of 65 projects entered by different local authority areas. A further 15 highly commended projects will receive up to 13,500 each in prize money.
Throughout the process, young people have played a leading role in the judging, from deciding the most deserving projects in their area to selecting the national winners.
Youth minister Beverley Hughes, whose department has been overseeing the competition, says she has been impressed with how the young people have risen to the youth challenge. "They have put in creativity, passion and commitment that would put many adults to shame," she says.
"This shows that when given the right opportunity and support, young people are not only willing to take responsibility, but also come up with great ideas that will make a positive difference in their communities."
Here we feature five winning projects.
OTHER WINNERS - Centenary Park Sports Project, Harrow - Fairfield Young People's Centre, Stockton-on-Tees - Getting A Life, Cambridgeshire - Oliver Hinds Youth Club, Nottingham - Redditch Student Council, Worcestershire - Nettica Cybercafe, Coventry - MAD youth group, Walsall - ALT-ED Sports Project, Harlow, Essex - The Markfield Community Centre Tottenham, London - Youth Arts Cinema, Lancaster
THE SHINE - SHEFFIELD
Attending a youth club can be an intimidating experience for a young person - even more so if you are overweight and lack self-confidence. The SHINE (Self Help, Independence, Nutrition & Exercise) is based at Steel Inn Youth Centre on Sheffield's Manor Estate and helps obese young people become fitter and healthier, both physically and mentally, by encouraging them to take part in a range of activities. Young people work alongside a range of professionals from nutritionists to psychologists to establish why they overeat. The young people attend a two-hour session on Saturdays and can also take part in exercise classes during the week.
Kath Sharman, project leader at The SHINE, says: "The young people would usually feel too selfconscious to exercise as part of a group but here they are all in a similar situation."
The project was set up three years ago and has relied mainly on volunteers to run sessions. One of its young members, Emma Hinchliffe, applied to the Youth Opportunity Fund for 15,000 to help the project purchase new sports equipment. Sharman says: "We'd made the best of what we had, but the extra money has allowed us to buy a range of equipment."
Since the programme started, one young person has lost six-and-a-half stone and many participants have developed the confidence to try new things.
The project plans to use its prize money to expand the range of activities it offers.
XTRAX - EAST SUSSEX
Xtrax drop-in centre in Hastings was in desperate need of some tender loving care. The carpets were old and some of the facilities were simply not fit for purpose. The centre knew what needed to change; the only problem was raising the money. Over the past few years, young people who attended the advice centre for 16- to 25-year-olds had tried to raise the funds for the improvements but had only managed to scrape together a few hundred pounds.
Andy Batsford, project manager at Xtrax, says: "When the young people found out about the Youth Capital Fund they knew this was their opportunity to get things sorted."
The young people spoke to a range of contractors and worked out that they needed about 8,000 to get the first phase of changes completed. The money was to be spent renovating the women's toilets and baby changing area, and adding new carpets throughout. The young women also wanted a sexual health room created where they could receive private help and advice.
Once the application was accepted, the young people managed the work themselves. Batsford says the renovations have made a massive difference, but adds the recent improvements are just a start: "The extra money from Actions Speak Louder ... will allow us to get the whole of the centre into shape."
BREAKING BARRIERS - LAMBETH
The borough of Lambeth in south London has become notorious for gang violence. On the streets, some young people are afraid to venture far from home for fear of being attacked or worse. Located in the middle of rival gang territories is the Marcus Lipton Youth Club, which provides a range of activities for young people.
Fed up about the area's reputation, three club members have set up a project designed to bring together young people from different parts of the borough. Alongside youth workers from the club, they founded Breaking the Barriers and last November applied to the Youth Opportunity Fund to raise 4,000 to pay to take 20 young people away on a residential break.
More than 100 young people applied to go on the trip, which was due to take place at a residential centre in Surrey at the end of March.
Nicola McLean, 19, chair of the Youth Opportunity Fund panel in Lambeth, says the scheme impressed because it sought to tackle the problem of gangs at an early age. "Most projects work with young people once they are already part of a gang. But Breaking Barriers works with 13- and 14-year-olds before they usually become members."
Over the course of the residential, the young people are due to take part in a range of challenging and fun activities designed to encourage them to work together. McLean adds: "We hope the young people will get to know each other better and once they return home they'll see each other as friends and not enemies."
The project intends to spend its prize money on running similar residentials with young people from different parts of the borough.
YO2 - DEVON
A year ago the future looked bleak for the YO2 project in Tiverton, Devon. This fortnightly youth club for young people with special needs was on the brink of closure after failing to secure funding.
But the young people, together with the help of participation worker Zaena Barnard, put together an application for more than 21,000 to the Youth Opportunity Fund panel to secure the project's future for a further 18 months. Fortunately for the club, its bid was successful.
Vikki Duffy, project co-ordinator at YO2, says: "The money was a life-saver. It looked at one stage that it could have been over."
The club is the only one of its kind in mid-Devon and works with 11- to 25-year-olds with a range of physical and mental disorders, including those with dysphasia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It provides an environment where the young people are free to be themselves without constantly having to explain their conditions or be seen as different. The young people take part in a range of activities from group sessions to life skills, as well as receiving health-related or employment advice.
Duffy says the centre's survival is vital for those who attend. "For most of the young people who come here, this is the only place they'll socialise," she says. "Without the club they would just stay at home."
Now YO2 has won a Youth Challenge Competition prize, it plans to make the club weekly and use the money to secure its long-term future. "The young people need somewhere to go regularly," says Duffy. "A fortnightly club is not ideal."
SOUTHAMPTON TOGETHER AGAINST RAPE - SOUTHAMPTON
Sex and relationships education often falls upon deaf ears. Young people don't think adults understand the pressures they are under or feel that they can turn to them for advice.
To overcome this barrier, Year 10 pupils from the Oaklands Community School in Southampton are being trained to become peer educators.
The pilot project will culminate in students delivering exercises to pupils in Year 8 in March. The peer educators have been trained by outreach workers from Southampton Together Against Rape (STAR) service and have devised a range of games, such as contraception snakes and ladders, that they think will help get the message across.
Michelle Barry, co-ordinator of STAR, says the classes will be based around the peer educators' own experiences. "The Year 10s know the types of questions they wanted answering when they were younger, so they'll be tailoring their classes around what they think will be the most important advice."
The programme has been funded by a 12,000 Youth Opportunity Fund grant, applied for by young people at the school. Barry says that the project would not have been possible without this funding stream. "Devising a peer education programme takes a lot more time than delivering normal sex and relationships education," she says.
Now the STAR project has won the Actions Speak Louder ... prize money, further peer education programmes will be run in other Southampton schools. Barry says: "The aim now is to take the scheme into both primary and secondary schools."
