It’s no secret that nowadays it’s hard for young people to make a living and chase their dreams, and that it is really easy to fall down the cracks. With Youth Day coming up on the 12 August, here are a few organisations helping young people rise against the pressure.
UK Youth
UK Youth is a leading national charity working towards bettering the lives of young people. What’s more, they are at the heart of a lively network of local youth organisations all across the UK.
In terms of the work done by the organisation, their development programmes offers a vast range of topics, including citizenship (politics, geography, philosophy, history, travel and entertainment), STEM, arts, wellbeing and enterprise.
The values of the organisation include advocating for the youth sector, and youth engagement.
For a similar, London-based option, Youth London offers good services helping young people and challenging them to become their best selves.
Prince’s Trust
The Prince’s Trust aims to help struggling 11 to 30-year-olds transform their lives. Whether you are unemployed or struggling at school, the trust is here to help.
The free programmes offer practical and financial support to young people to stabilise their lives and move forward.
It’s estimated that the charity made a £1.4 billion return of value to society through their help for disadvantaged young people over the last 10 years.
Envision
Run by a small team of about 40 dedicated members and 300 volunteers, Envision brings together local businesses, schools, and charities to give young people a practical learning experience which gives them the transferable skills they need to succeed in work and life.
Their approach combines the idealism and ideas of young people with the pragmatism of older volunteers to get the best of both worlds.
Their programmes – chief of which is Community Apprentice, loosely based on the TV show of the same name – take place in schools and are carried out by recent graduates.
Paul Hamlyn Foundation
The foundation’s aim, in their words, is to invest in young people. It’s been around since 1987, when it was created by the late Paul Hamlyn, and it has been largest independent grant-making foundations in the UK.
Their guiding principles include supporting innovation, giving people a voice, working with others, making lasting commitments, being open, having impact, working across the UK, and being an effective organisation and a fair employer.
Their work has a strong focus on the arts sector.
Youth Enterprise
The UK’s leading financial education charity, Youth Enterprise helps over 250,000 young people every year by bridging the gap between school and work, and offering real, transferrable skills for the workplace.
Their focus is on building 8 key skills: communication, confidence, financial capability, initiative, organisation, problem-solving, teamwork and resilience.
Youth Enterprise also support over 9,000 teachers in both enterprise and financial education. The organisation itself is run with the help of more than 7,000 volunteers and 3,500 businesses.
The organisation is running quite a lot programmes, starting from ones aimed at primary schoolchildren to college and university ones. Interested college and university students can get out of the school bubble by trying their hand in either the Company Programme, Start-Up or Team Programme.
The charity has helped more than four million young people since it was established, one million of whom have run businesses for a year as part of their Company Programme.
> Borislava Todorova
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