Youth groups benefit from £1.16m funding
Nina Jacobs
Friday, March 6, 2020
A national youth charity is hoping nearly 80,000 young people will benefit from its share of a £7m government grant to boost opportunities for youth service provision in the UK.
UK Youth, which received £1.16m from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s Youth Accelerator Fund, said the funding would be spread across 168 organisations and community groups.
The money will be used to enhance and expand existing sessions, activities and spaces for young people, the charity said.
Grants ranging from £360 up to £20,000 will help provide youth-focused work including sports clubs, counselling services, creative writing workshops and equipment for children with disabilities.
The funding boost means evening and weekend youth centres should be able to stay open for longer, it added.
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The charity said it received 1,469 applications, requesting more than £15m, to the fund announced by the former Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan at an event in London in January.
Youth organisations were given a two-week window to apply for grants from the fund launched by the government to address multi-million pound cuts to youth services.
Ndidi Okezie, UK Youth’s chief executive officer, said more than half of applications it received by the 11 February deadline were from smaller organisations with less than £250,000 annual turnover.
Big thank you to @UKYouth for providing a grant of £9,230 towards extra youth work sessions, equipment and to kit out our Youth Van #standwithyouth @YoungNewcastle @bbcnewcastle pic.twitter.com/wr6N5iKFMF
— Streetwise Newcastle (@StreetwiseNE) March 3, 2020
“It’s incredible and overwhelming that over £1m has gone out to the UK youth movement supporting so many positive activities for young people.
“We’re delighted at the response, especially as the vast majority came from small organisations.
“This motivates us to continue to champion further investment into youth services, and we will keep striving to influence more funding, reaching the organisations that need it most,” she said.
UK Youth supports a network of around 5,500 youth organisations helping them to provide access to opportunities for young people aged nine to 25.
More than 90 per cent of young people helped by the charity face at least one barrier to progression such as being in care, homelessness, having a disability or poor mental health.
