Government invests £1m in social action
Jess Brown
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
The government will invest £1m to get more young people involved in social action, youth services minister Rob Wilson has announced.
Speaking at a House of Commons event yesterday, Wilson said the funding is part of government's commitment "to build a truly compassionate society".
The money will go into the Youth Social Action Fund which organisations will be able to apply for funding from.
"This additional £1m will tackle the challenges facing disadvantaged young people and help embed social action in young people's lives,” Wilson said.
Charlotte Hill, chief executive of Step Up To Serve, a charity aiming to get 1.5 million more young people participating in social action by 2020, said: “We are delighted the minister has confirmed youth social action is a priority for the life of this parliament and continues to actively invest in it.
"We know it brings a range of benefits to communities at the same time as developing key life skills in the young people who lead it.
"We have a great deal of work to do between now and 2020 and this is a wonderful platform from which to build.”
The event was also used to launch a report by think-tank Demos, called Service Nation 2020, which recommends establishing full-time “service year” placements as an alternative option for school-leavers.
It also calls for the development of a cross-departmental national strategy for youth social action, through the Office for Civil Society.
Jonathan Birdwell, head of citizenship at Demos, said the target of engaging 60 per cent of youth in social action projects will never be realised without "decisive support from government".
“It is essential that we see the development of a cross-departmental national strategy and an independent co-ordination body to implement it, if we want to bring long-term sustainability to a sector that offers such extensive benefits to individuals and society as a whole,” he said.