As we near the end of the year, we’re looking back at some of the awesome projects we have been involved in to get young people active and engaged in the community! In the October half term, we teamed up with London Youth to help empower youth organisations across London to deliver a wide range of activities for young people to get them active and having fun!

From football to martial arts to an inflatable assault course – over twenty activities were run over the course of the week benefitting 815 young people across London. All the activities shared a common goal: to get young people active again as well as having fun and meeting new people.

In the Shaping Our Future: The Jack Petchey COVID 19 Youth Survey, run in summer 2020, 45% of young people surveyed told us they were spending less time outside during the pandemic. This half term project is just one of many efforts currently happening across London and Essex to encourage young people to get active, outside and motivated once again after the lockdown.

Activities included NightLife football tournament held at night by Youth Action Alliance, Skyway Charity’s giant inflatable assault course in Hoxton and bubble football organised by XLP. Many of the activities were youth-led, with young volunteers and young sports leaders being involved at every step.

Indeed, Zest of Mind, a well-being charity that partners with sports clubs, health centres and other organisations, made their entire event focused on increasing youth-leadersip. They gave the power to the young people they work with to design, organise and deliver their day of activities. Included in the activities with a dodge-ball world cup style of knockout competition.

Compass Collective, a theatre, music and film organisation that works to help young refugees and asylum seekers build resilience and integrate into the UK, used their half-term funding to organise ‘A Walk With Little Amal’ for th young refugees they work with. Little Amal, the 3.5m tall living artwork of a young Syrian refugee child, has walked from Turkey all the way to the UK to focus attention on the needs of young refugees and arrived in London 23^rd October.

This is a journey the young people at Compass can relate to, and the group organised to take the young people to walk with Amal as part of a procession from St Paul’s Cathedral across Millennium Bridge to the Shakespeare’s Globe as part of a large procession. The group then continued their walk through central London as a way to engage their new arrivals and introduce them to London in a positive away. The day provided the young people to socialise, experience the city (for many of them for the first time), learn new English words, engage with an important cultural moment and discuss different ways of getting active.

Find out more about Walk With Amal here.

In addition to these hyperlocal projects, London Youth also delivered sessions in youth mental health awareness training and multi-skill training with Streetgames and a local dance festival with ZooNation in Haringey.

To find out more about our partnership with London Youth, click here.

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