Aston-Mansfield Receives £468,474 of Funding to Launch Youth-led Community Cohesion Project
Aston-Mansfield celebrates after receiving £468,474 of National Lottery funding to build a safer, happier, and more connected Newham through a new youth-led project.
We are celebrating after being awarded £468,474 (over a four-year period) in National Lottery funding to support our work empowering young people.
We will use the money to create a more connected and inclusive Newham through the Breaking Boundaries Collective: a four-year youth-led programme designed to improve social cohesion and address increasing divisiveness in communities.
We’ve been working in East London since 1884, and are currently based in their community centre in Manor Park. Originally founded as two separate charities which merged in 2000, we were set up with a vision to support east-end children, young people and families.
We work in four key areas:
Our work with young people has included training workshops, mentoring, a youth-led heritage programme, social action projects and employability skills projects as well as other projects which have seen young people grow in confidence, develop decision-making skills, encourage social inclusion, and improve well-being.
We are passionate about youth voice, encouraging young people to join our board as Young Trustees, and take up paid Young Facilitator roles, delivering youth projects whilst developing their own leadership and delivery skills.
The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK, will see the Breaking Boundaries Collective reduce loneliness and isolation and build stronger relationships across different communities through a range of youth-led projects, workshops and events which aim to engage around 1800 members of the local community and make long-lasting change.
What we will do
- Engage 1800 community members
- Enlist 16 Young Facilitators (4 per year)
- Engage 160 young people as Changemakers
"My role as a Young Facilitator has helped me become more confident and personable… I’ve gained soft skills I now use in all areas of life. I feel trusted to plan and co-deliver sessions for young people who share similar experiences to mine."
At the same time, the project will focus on increasing the social mobility of young people from disadvantaged and low socioeconomic backgrounds. This will be achieved by employing 16 Young Facilitators (4 Young Facilitators per year) in key leadership roles as well as engaging 160 young people as Changemakers, providing training and development through learning days and Action Learning Sets.
Using an integrated and community-focused approach, alongside the development of Young Facilitators to lead the project, Breaking Boundaries Collective will build on our existing work and create a safer, happier and more connected Newham for young people and the wider community.
“We’re delighted that The National Lottery Community Fund has recognised our work in this way. Now, thanks to National Lottery players, we will be able to continue our work empowering and upskilling young people, whilst building a more connected and inclusive community. This is important because it will allow young people from disadvantaged and low socioeconomic backgrounds to truly thrive as part of a connected and resilient wider community.”
The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its strategy, ‘It starts with community’, which will underpin its efforts to distribute at least £4 billion of National Lottery funding by 2030.
As part of this, the funder has four key missions, which are to support communities to come together, be environmentally sustainable, help children and young people thrive and enable people to live healthier lives.
National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, last year (2023/24) The National Lottery Community Fund awarded over half a billion pounds (£686.3 million) of life-changing funding to communities across the UK, supporting over 13,700 projects to turn their great ideas into reality.
Find out more about our Youth Empowerment work here: www.aston-mansfield.org.uk/working-with-young-people/