The London Borough of Southwark's annual allocation comes to £221,756 for the youth opportunity fund and £191,801 for the youth capital fund.
In 2007-08, the two funds attracted a total of 340 bids, 211 of which were approved.
Meetings of the young people's panel are held every two or three weeks to look at new applications and set dates for applicants to come along for interviews. Four funding rounds are held each year.
Who is on the panel? Forty-nine young people were involved during the year 2007-08. All of them came from disadvantaged or hard-to-reach groups and about 60 per cent were black or of mixed heritage.
Panel member Mackie Bendu explains that there are about 10 members at any one particular time, with the membership pepped up by recruitment after each funding round.
Southwark youth work staff are available to support members. For example, in one case they have enabled a young woman in foster care to join the panel, making transport and other support arrangements to allay the concerns of her carers.
Workers say she has gone from being shy to being able to express herself with confidence, challenging the views of others when necessary and working with other members of a care-leaving group to bid for funds.
The challenges Making the application process a positive experience for young people has been important to panel members. To ensure this happened, panel members undertook accredited training to help them get to know their borough better, develop and apply criteria and work together in groups.
"We provide refreshments and try to make people feel comfortable," says panellist Dumisani Moyo. "A lot of people say they feel a lot less pressure facing a panel of other young people rather than older people, and they don't feel forced to speak in a particular way."
Territorialism can be an issue locally, and several projects have been encouraged to open up their activities to other young people, which has helped participants to recognise what can be achieved when a hostile stance is dropped.
What the young people say "I've learned a lot about the way communities run and about how vital funding like this can be," says Moyo. "It's important for the government to be involved in supporting this kind of thing, because I've seen some wonderful changes where young people are making a tangible difference to their communities and to their prospects.
"I've also realised how important it is that we are smart and responsible in the way we play our role - if we are irresponsible a lot could go wrong and money would be wasted."
Mackie Bendu adds that panel members work hard to get out and about to youth clubs and venues where they can encourage applications from hard-to-reach groups.
The future "We get a lot of applications for football, but we don't want to end up just funding the same thing over and over again," says Moyo. "Every cycle we review the criteria to see how we can keep it fresh."
Mackie Bendu also highlights the need to encourage applicants to stretch their limits.
"There is a lot of football, but then I've also been involved in funding skydiving and a talent show that ended up with participants getting on to TV," he says.
WHERE THE MONEY WENT
Picture Box: After attending a media and film course run by the youth centre InSpire, young people were looking for creative ways to engage their peers in the community and came up with the idea of developing a youth cinema. Youth opportunity fund money helped them set up as a social enterprise, and they developed the business name, logo and publicity materials. The group also controls the budget, programme, box office, tuck shop and film projection. A film is shown every two weeks and they meet to assess the previous screening, order film titles and shop stock, and plan rotas and outreach. Looking ahead, they plan to open up the venue to other groups and support local schools by screening film versions of books.
Reaching Out: The youth leadership panel of a local counselling project came up with an idea for a mobile project providing a range of services, which could visit local areas between 9pm and 2am. The group - called 4 Us by Bus - worked with a consortium of local organisations under the banner Reaching Out. They were awarded £80,000 from the youth capital fund to purchase and kit out the vehicle with resources, including a music studio and an IT suite. The design for the project was worked out together with other young people. Khadisha Smith, chair of 4 Us by Bus, said they held regular workshops to develop ideas and worked with partner organisations to promote young people's views.
Young Travellers: Youth workers were keen to extend their contact with young travellers and work alongside Southwark Travellers' Action Group. In particular, they worked with a young man who had not engaged previously with any provision. Staff encouraged him to get involved and eventually he applied for funding for a group of young travellers to undergo boxing training and visit a group in Bristol. Staff say his confidence has grown and he can now manage situations where he is the only young person from the Traveller community. He has become motivated to get involved with other youth activities for his community and has expressed an interest in becoming a youth worker.
