Inspirational Bristol Youth Are Transforming Their Community

Bristol City’s Youth Council are a group of young people taking practical action in their community in order to create positive social change that is of benefit to the wider community as well as to the youth council themselves. They have designed and delivered some brilliant projects addressing issues that are relevant to their community. They shine as individuals and as a group. They were instrumental in City’s holiday camp success and this year they have delivered 5 ground-breaking projects.  They really are the voice of their community and are constantly coming up with new community issues to overcome.

They were involved in the Bristol clean up, hosted a girls event which saw over 100 girls attended, developed and delivered an anti-poverty free football camp, a free disability holiday camp-over 50 in attendance, F3 girls session, Luke 5s League to combat Anti- Social Behaviour, developed a Mumball session, weekly youth disability session and recorded all of their achievements by writing a Social Impact report.

The programmes they have run have addressed a number of issues in society and in only a year have completely transformed perceptions, attitudes and behaviour.   There was a problem within the community, people didn’t have confidence, were subject to anti-social behaviour and didn’t feel they could afford activities or be would be heard within their own community.

Now people are able to access affordable sessions, which in turn is giving people greater confidence, which is leading to more people accessing education and qualifications and less people witnessing anti-social behaviour and substance misuse. The most important result is that for the first time young people are feeling As if their voices are being heard and they are actually making their community a better place.

They have won a number of awards already and have been invited to talk in front of hundreds of people. As well as all of the above they have all had their own journeys documented. They were all chosen or referred to the organisation for their own specific reasons.

This is Ben and Michael, the brains behind the LUKE 5s league

Ben: 16

Ben has grown in confidence, Ben was constantly breaking into the football courts and being aggressive to staff. He was the brains behind the LUKE5s league. He and all the other Youth Council have volunteered their time at every single holiday camp. Giving up their own school holidays to help deliver the camps

 

Michael, 16:

Very introverted, was always around the courts, struggled socially. No grass space to play at home. Broke into facilities to play football. Constantly chased off. Met at a social inclusion session. Luke 5s was his idea with Ben, he is now the league admin and organiser.

LUKES 5.

Every Friday night young people aged between 14-16 turn up to play in a FREE football league.  This brilliant project, put in place to address anti-social behaviour. Which has lowered around the site by 90% compared to last year.

The youth council wrote a bid to get this funded, then went out and sourced sponsorship, which was based upon feedback from young people. “At this age appearance is everything, so we have a teenage fashion shop sponsoring the project, the winners get a load of clothes” says Ben. We also get further education organisations to come out and talk to them about options for their next stage in life.”