Today we are celebrating Power of Youth Day, which is an annual opportunity to say THANK YOU to all the young people who are working to make positive changes in their communities! It’s a chance to spotlight young people and demonstrate the real commitment that organisations and individuals have to empowering others.✨

The Jack Petchey Foundation has proudly re-signed the Power of Youth Charter, to continue our support of the #iWill movement. Youth Voice is at the heart of our work, and young people are involved in setting the priorities for our grant-making whilst we develop new programmes in response to their expressed needs.

The theme this year is ‘This Is Me’ which is all about sharing young people’s stories as a superpower to inspire others and showing the impact of youth social action. Below we have highlighted some of our that contribute towards youth social action through their fantastic work with us!

👉Interns

Our internship programme has been running for 5 years, and throughout that time many young people have taken on roles within a youth-based organisation that are dedicated to making an impact towards young people. This year our own intern, Aaron, is currently the Youth Voice and Engagement Intern at JPF, and he directly works with young people to promote positive stories of their achievements and successes.

👉Young Leaders

Young Leaders are graduates of our Achiever Network programme (a youth development programme), who contribute to the development of the Jack Petchey Foundation and the empowerment of young people as future leaders, through volunteering and investing their own time in doing so!

👉Mentors

Mentors are important because they provide guidance, support, and expertise to help individuals achieve their goals and personal growth, which is why we provide mentors for our interns as part of the Internship Programme. Our mentors range from all of our partners to ex-employees who are willing to offer valuable feedback, further creating a social impact through our Interns and their career progression!

👉Youth Consultation Panel 

The Jack Petchey Foundation is committed to ensuring young people and their voices are embedded throughout all aspects of our work. In 2019, the Youth Consultation Panel was created and currently consists of eight young people, all of whom have engaged with one or more of the many Jack Petchey Foundation programmes. This group of dynamic young people meet monthly and are committed to highlighting and amplifying young people’s voices and opinions to our Senior Management Team and Board of Trustees.

👉Youth Trustee

We also have a Youth Trustee who sits on our main Board of Trustees, which ensures that even at the top level of the organisation, young people are involved in making pivotal decisions for the Foundation!

👉Individual Grant for Volunteering

Our Individual Grant for Volunteering are great opportunity for young people to get involved in volunteering projects in the UK and overseas, which has helped young people make a huge impact in projects across the UK and all over the world with local communities, support schools, improve access to health services and contribute to conservation projects.

A recent case study is of a Police Cadets group whom fundraised £800 before the trip, and then invested it to renovating two big classrooms, a special needs classroom, a huge outside wall and outside office for young people in Gambia!

👉First Give

Since 2015, we have partnered up with First Give, who work in partnership with secondary schools to inspire and equip young people to take action to tackle social issues! This is a great programme as it equips young people to give back to their local community through social action, while developing valuable transferrable skills. Find out more here.

In conclusion, we are proud to commit and support Power of Youth, thank you #IWill for all the fantastic work you do in empowering people! Share what youth social action means to you or your organisation and share on social media using #PowerOfYouthDay!

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