£50,000 awarded to local youth groups

The fourteen organisations working across Hammersmith and Fulham were selected by a panel of young people to receive a share of the £50,000 funding pot. The funding will be used to support young people across the borough through a range of projects and activities including basketball, yoga, theatre and acting classes, mentoring, dance, mental health and wellbeing events.

The Young GrantMakers Panel was launched in partnership with John Lyon's Charity to reach grassroots organisations with small grants. The Foundation works with a selection of young people from across the borough. The young grant makers are supported in their development and leadership skills through training provided by the Foundation to form a decision making panel for the funding round. Those who took part were between 14 and 18 years old, and worked together to assess a range of applications from organisations working directly with young people.

Through the Young GrantMakers, the Foundation prioritises the experiences and insights of young people to help direct funding to where it can have the most impact, and importantly, allows young people to determine which activities and services should receive funding to support their needs.

Young Hammersmith & Fulham Foundation believes in promoting youth leadership. Through our work, the Foundation supports organisations working in the youth sector to strengthen civil society, and organisations who help children and young people to have high quality opportunities.

Some of the projects set to receive a grant from the programme include:

FunPact, a small organisation with a big mission. They will receive £4,000 to expand their activities, working with parents, carers and children, bringing them together through their programmes, workshops and interactive learning sessions. Their workshops focus on the relationship development between parents and children, or carers and children, to tackle anxiety, build safer and stronger relationships and develop mutual learning on emotional intelligence, mental health, positive behaviours and wellbeing.

One Place, a local social enterprise will receive £5,000 to deliver a free 24-week programme of acting workshops focussed across film, camera and sound production for twenty young people from Black and ethnic backgrounds. These workshops will help to increase young people's skills in the creative sector, crucially by providing accessible opportunities to learn new skills for children and young people who are often marginalised.

Urban Yogis UK who support young people through a combination of yoga, mixed-martial arts, mindfulness, meditation and youth work. The group works with young people to overcome issues including mental health, trauma, crime and exclusion from education. The group will receive £4,750 to support their aim to make yoga accessible to all young people. Through yoga, the group helps to break down social, economic, gender and cultural barriers which can prevent some young people from taking part.

A full list of those projects set to receive funding can be found here

Gareth Dixon, Chief Executive of Young Hammersmith & Fulham Foundation said:

“We are proud that we can give local young people the agency to decide which organisations and projects should receive funding to deliver opportunities for young people.

“To work in collaboration with young people in this way is rare in grant-making. Still, we need to be creative in finding new and ambitious ways to give a voice to young people, trusting their integrity and allowing them to use such precious resources effectively.

“We will continue to evolve the Young Grant Makers process to promote local development and ownership of youth provision, celebrating the cultural identity of youth organisations and young people.”

The Young Grantmakers Panel were supported by White City Place and Stanhope, who generously provided free space to host the sessions.

The Foundation is keen to expand and develop its Young GrantMakers to award further funding to local youth groups throughout 2023 and into 2024. If your business is interested in partnering with Young Hammersmith & Fulham Foundation to discuss corporate social responsibility, community investment and youth engagement in Hammersmith and Fulham, please contact Jude Dave: jude@yhff.org.uk