Young people support Sierra Leone children with help from GwirVol grant

15 Dec 2011

A grant from Wales’s leading youth volunteering initiative is helping finance young Cardiff people to travel to Sierra Leone next month (December) to educate children living in poverty.

GwirVol has made an award of £16,600 to enable the 10 young men and women to lead workshops on life skills, sexual health, nutrition and gender equality – the latter through playing football - giving the children of Freetown the opportunity to learn important skills.

The SAFE Foundation project will in turn benefit the Welsh youngsters, who are from disadvantaged communities and might not otherwise have had the chance to take part in such a project, by providing them with motivation, empowerment, skills and knowledge.

The Cardiff-based charity is one of 35 projects across Wales to have received funding from the latest round of GwirVol grants. The others include development of a team of peer supporters working with young people with substance misuse problems and transformation of three derelict sites into community play area and open spaces.

The aim of the GwirVol Youth Volunteering Grants Scheme, which is administered by Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA), is to support the delivery of a wide range of new volunteering opportunities for young people aged 16-25. Since its launch in April 2009, the programme has supported more than 120 youth volunteering projects.

GwirVol Grants Scheme awards September 2011

The SAFE Foundation - £16,600

Founded in 2005, the Safe Foundation provides Support, Aid, Fun and Education to communities in the developing world, and currently has projects in South India, Ghana, Freetown and Uganda.

The young people going to Sierra Leone are currently taking part in training in global citizenship, life skills, HIV and AIDS education, nutrition and gender equality.

The project is being supported by the Craig Bellamy Foundation, a charity set up by the Wales footballer to offer underprivileged children in Sierra Leone the chance to reach their potential through sport and education.

The young people will be leaving for Freetown on 4 December. ‘The grant from GwirVol will help to pay for flights, accommodation, food and water and internal travel,’ said

Hannah Fit, Project leader. ‘The project would not be able to go ahead without this support, and we are hugely thankful to WCVA and GwirVol for supporting this important project.’

Contact: Hannah Fitt - 02920 369727; hannah@thesafefoundation.co.uk

Barnardos Cymru - £10,000

Barnardos Cymru is aiming to recruit and support disabled ex-service users as volunteers in Pembrokeshire.

Young people will be recruited as mentors to current service users, offering them support, friendship and the opportunity to develop social networks within their communities.

Children’s Services Manager Deirdre Connell, who runs the project, said: ‘The funding will enable Barnardos Cymru to build upon our current volunteer-led service by involving disabled young people in creative, responsive ways.’

Contact: Deirdre Connell - 01646 687 064; deirdre.connell@barnardos.org.uk.

Clwyd Alyn Housing Association - £9,200

GwirVol funding is being used to transform three derelict sites in Garden City, Flintshire into community play area and open spaces.

Local young people will be recruited to lead in the planning, design and practical delivery of the project. It is hoped to involve up to 30 local young residents in community consultation to ensure their specific needs are met, as well as those of the wider community.

The plan is to develop initiatives to reduce levels of fly tipping and vandalism currently experienced on the three sites, as well as forming an intergenerational ‘Friends Of’ group to co-ordinate and support the maintenance and long term sustainability of the sites once complete.

Contact: Louise Blackwell and Neil Moffatt - 01745 536913/ 01745 536828; louise.blackwell@clwydalyn.co.uk and neil.Moffatt@clwydalyn.co.uk.

NewLink Wales - £8,988

NewLink Wales - an independent substance misuse organisation operating across Wales - is using GwirVol funding to run a project called Streetlink, which is aimed at developing a team of peer supporters to work with young people who have either been recreational substance misusers or have substance misuse issues in their families.

This will be achieved through the medium of street dance, where the participants will learn to dance and develop a performance involving families and communities as wider learning and participants.

Contact: Daljit Gill - 02920 529002; daljit.gill@newlinkwales.org.uk.

Newbridge Memo - £7,258

Newbridge Memo - Newbridge Institute and Memorial Hall – is aims to recruit more volunteers aged 16 to 25 within the organisation, specifically within its forum.

The young people will have the opportunity to try their hand at a range of tasks, including helping to run the website, the development and delivery of youth and children’s programmes, planning and managing events, engaging the community with the hall’s restoration project, researching the Memo’s history and caring for and cataloguing its archive of artifacts and documents.

Volunteer Geraint King said: ‘The funding provided by GwirVol has allowed us to cover travel expenses of volunteers and provide them with the equipment they need to undertake these exciting voluntary opportunities.’

Contact: Geraint King - 01495 243 252; geraint.king@newbridge-memo.co.uk.

Mid & West Wales Chamber - £9,984

The Chamber is a not-for-profit organisation aiming to achieve social and economic regeneration in communities across West Wales and Powys. Its project aims to help young people on the organisation’s alternative curriculum project (FACE), along with local schools, to maximise the post-16 opportunities offered to them and make a successful transition to post-project activities.

It will achieve this through recruiting and supporting a team of young volunteers to act as mentors to current participants to support them on the project and/or through the transition phase. It will also link to local schools to offer mentoring support to pupils needing support to make the transition to post-school activities.

Project Manager Gerald Davies said: ‘The GwirVol grant will make a very positive difference by allowing us to appoint and support a part-time volunteer co-ordinator, as well as providing training and meeting the travelling costs of young volunteers.’

Contact: Gerald Davies - 01554 779910; gdavies@mwwc.org.uk.

GwirVol has the following funding strands:

· Creating Opportunities. For organisations looking to create new youth volunteering projects or roles; or to recruit more young people into existing volunteering roles. Creating Opportunities grant applications can be for up to a maximum amount of £10,000.

· Promotions. For organisations looking to promote the benefits or challenge the perceptions of volunteering to young people. Grants up to a maximum amount of £3,000.

· Millennium Volunteers. For organisations looking to recognise the commitment young people give to volunteering through offering the 200-hour award of excellence. Grants up to a maximum amount of £10,000.

Running alongside the above four strands is GwirVol StreetGames grants. StreetGames is a UK charity dedicated to increasing sporting opportunities in deprived areas. The charity launched in 2007 and has been helping to make sport more accessible to young people, regardless of their income or social circumstances, by supporting and establishing local projects around the UK that deliver doorstep sport, ie, positive activities & sport provided to young people when they want it, where they want it and how they want it. StreetGames grant applications can be up to a maximum amount of £2,000. There is no deadline for this grant. For further information and details of how to register your interest please visit http://www.gwirvol.org/en/grants/streetgames/.

Applications can be downloaded from the GwirVol website www.gwirvol.org

For more information please contact Lynne Reynolds on 029 2043 1718 or Leah Doherty on 029 2043 1763, ldoherty@wcva.org.uk. WCVA website www.wcva.org.uk