Carnegie Young People Initiative

The future 1st project is part of the Birmingham community venture project, which serves Winson Green, an inner city area of Birmingham. The LEA regulates the project. The project is coordinated by a dedicated youth worker, who is employed full time, whilst the staff team is made up of youth, arts and crafts workers, with help from a personal advisor and a Learning Mentor. Two workers are employed for 24 hours per week and a third is employed as sessional worker.

What we do?

The main aim of future 1st is to reconnect disengaged young people aged 14-19 into Education, after exclusion. The project does this in three ways: Firstly we provide OCN accredited courses that operate over the academic year 24 hours per week. The course content focuses on:

1. Self awareness
2. Assertiveness

The Aims of the project are:
To dispel the myths and misconceptions of imprisonment.
To raise awareness among young people of the ultimate consequences of crime.
To discourage young people from making a mistake that could ruin their lives.
To encourage young people to take responsibility for their own actions.
To promote a safe and law abiding life style.

ReAct aims to help young people in Halton to react to negative portrayal and a lack of access to the media by leading their own media group.

The group will be supported by Halton Access To Media but will be directing the content of live radio broadcasts, film making and submissions to the local press. The group will also be helped to participate in local decision by being given access to police community action meetings and MP surgeries with the support of the HAM staff.

The project is being funded by Comic Relief and is set to run for three years.

REACT is a project for young people with learning disabilites, led by people with learning disabilities.

A major outcome of REACT is to provide a voice for young people with learning disabilities to influence both local and national policy and service delivery.

REACT offers awareness sessions and learning/training opportunities and networks with other organisations, both statutory and voluntary to share experience, expertise and best practise

Youth amongst black Africans & Minority Ethnic (BME)communities face various challenges owing to their circumstances. Low income and unemployment are common and bring other problems. These include alcohol and substance abuse, domestic strife, family breakdown, school dropout,unemployment and emotional stress. Parents often take major decisions affecting the whole family but do not involve their children. it is likely that the children as youth have problems of poor communication, lack of assertiveness,critical thinking,problem analsyis and indecisiveness. The real nature and magnitude is not known. Nor is there documented evidence which can enable community workers to intervene systematically.
This project is an action research proposal so that the nature,scope and magnitude of the problem is known and addressed.

To provide young people with the opportunity to voice opinions, make decisions and vote for the services which meet their needs.

ESSA aims to be the representative body for secondary students in England. It will help empower students to take a more active involvement in decision making processes affecting their education and work to engage the most disenfrachised members of the school community for whom school is something to endure rather than enjoy.

ESSA will promote the fact that students are the key people in Education and that they should be consulted and involved in decision making issues from the outset, as outlined in Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

This project aims to facilitate meaningful and active Citizenship and sustainable involvement in community action amongst young people. It encourages decision making at all levels, responsive to young people’s experiences and based on local realities.

To organise an international summer school for young activists to share experiences, enhance skills and develop enthusiasm and energy to go out and change things that matter to them. This is an event run by young people for young people.