This month we focus on ‘spreading wings’ with the exciting return of the NCS (National Citizen Service) programme coming up this summer. Action4Youth is based in Aylesbury, Milton Keynes and High Wycombe but we serve the South-East and wider East of England. We delve into the detail of these NCS programmes and share how this year we have a new, expanded geography. We have also had the pleasure of welcoming students from Poland to our Caldecotte Xperience and have been visited by different businesses from our local area and share thanks.
Action4Youth is proud to deliver the NCS programme for 2023
Action4Youth has worked with NCS since 2010, delivering the life-changing experience for young people. To date, we have worked with over 4000 young people, helping them to realise their potential and smash their future goals. Designed for 16-17 year olds, NCS creates new friendships, builds confidence, breaks down barriers between communities and develops new skills. The experience is all about emboldening young people, giving them an experience of discovering what life may involve, without all the responsibility.
“It’s such a great way to meet new young people and learn something new! Nothing beats getting real-life experience; you can’t get that with a textbook”. Shijo Jose, our auditor excitedly told us about his NCS experience as a teenager.
Over the summer, each programme with Action4Youth is a one-week residential (5 days, 4 nights, Monday-Friday) at three different locations. There are eight ‘LIVE IT’ waves taking place at The Caldecotte Xperience, Milton Keynes which aims to give young people different life skills. They will take part in adventurous activities, first aid sessions, a parliament session, cooking and budgeting, mental health, communication and resilience and other sessions to be confirmed! Each ‘LIVE IT’ programme will have up to 120 young people on each wave.
The other two locations are YHA Truleigh Hill and Green Park, and the programmes taking place at these locations are ‘CHANGE IT’ programmes, which include adventurous activities, different skills sessions for young people to learn about Social Action, as well as a day of volunteering at the end of the week. These programmes will have between 60 and 120 young people per wave.
One of the differences for this year is that the young people taking part are travelling from different areas of the country via Travel Hubs where the A4Y team will meet and get to know the young people whilst they travel together. Later in the year there will be term-time programmes taking place in local schools and colleges.
Hear from some of the young people who have carried out NCS with A4Y:
We Welcomed Students from Poland
Students from Jelenia Gora, Poland (seen below) visited our outdoor education centre, The Caldecotte Xperience (TCX).
We were excited to host international students at Caldecotte. The group from Poland enjoyed the outdoor activities as well as visiting the sights of Oxford and London on their trip.
We host many different groups at TCX and love meeting and inspiring young people from all around the country. We hope that we will see more students from Poland and further afield. A huge shoutout to Anna Malantowicz, our TCX Office Manager who organised the visit.
Our 1.4 million appeal is calling for funds to improve our facilities, making them more sustainable and accessible so that we can serve even more groups of young people. We can’t wait!
Volunteering Week 1st – 7th June 2023
We were lucky enough to have several businesses donate their time to The Caldecotte Xperience this month. Tom Wraight, Regional Director of Careys and his team came together to create a new pathway.
In celebration of #VolunteersWeek in early June, over the past few weeks we have been joined by the inspiring teams from Ringway (Suzanne Moss’ team, above left), NHBC (above right) and Careys (top) who kindly volunteered their time to our beloved charity. Ringway were on hand to erect the large marquee ready for our NCS students; NHBC were tasked with putting up the bell tents for extra accommodation and Careys created a stunning, permanent and most importantly accessible path to the yurts.
We say a huge thank you to all the teams. Their energy, local commitment and time will make an enormous difference to thousands of young people. We are always open to businesses joining us for corporate volunteering days. To find out more email Bonnie Clayton.
Things You May Have Missed…
We share thanks to the East West Railway (EWR) who attended the final self-delivery Inspiration Programme (TIP) session at The Buckingham school. EWR generously provided the funding for this school to do TIP and came along to share information about the organisation, the work they do and career pathways within EWR. Staff worked with young people to design their ideal train stations (pictured above) and presented TIP certificates.
Students from The Aylesbury Vale Academy also completed their programme and special guest, criminal barrister and A4Y ambassador, Irfan Arif, joined them in celebration to present certificates, seen below giving his aspirational welcoming address. Thank you Irfan and well done to all the students involved.
Having a safe place to go is hugely important for anyone. The Junction in High Wycombe provides this safe space for our youngsters. Poppy from The Rectory Homes Foundation visited the centre recently (pictured above with Centre Manager, Ayo and Bonnie, Fundraising Manager).
It is thanks to this foundation and others that we can offer FREE activities, workshops, talks and counselling to young people who visit the centre.
The Junction Team also spread the word of our youth work at the recent Wycombe event, FrogFest; a local festival filled with fun and phat tunes, it is with thanks to our team that we can have a presence at local events to spread the word about what we can offer to support our local communities.
Welcoming A New Face
We welcome new trustee Alastair Douglas to the team. Alastair is a board level executive with extensive financial, commercial, regulatory and operational experience gained from over 20 years of shaping and leading growth companies. A Qualified Chartered Accountant (ACA) with significant experience across corporate finance, forecasting and planning, tax, compliance and regulatory management he is passionate about customer and employee satisfaction and looking forward to working with the Action4Youth team and the opportunity to make a difference to young people.
If you’re interested in working with young people take a look at all of our current vacancies here.
