At the height of the pandemic, UK Youth’s Ansar Youth Project was running the second-busiest food bank in Brent, providing people with more than 150 food parcels and 1,400 meals every day.
The food bank was conceived, created and operated by young people from a diverse range of disadvantaged and marginalised communities around Wembley, north London.
The experience was seismic for them: after having spent years being supported by the Ansar Youth Project (AYP), the young people were moved to realise that when disaster struck, they had the confidence and skills to step up and help others even less fortunate than themselves.
“Without AYP, I’d be dead or in jail now,” said 17-year-old Jordan Carder, who helped run the food bank with his twin, Nathan. “I was only 10 when I first came to AYP but I’d already been arrested and was getting into regular fights. The centre has totally transformed me: I’ve got courage and confidence now, and I know that helping others is the best feeling in the world.”
This ethos of reaching out to the local community was one of UK Youth’s key aims, said Kayleigh Wainwright, the charity’s director of external affairs. “We support over 7,000 youth projects across the country, each one set up in response to the needs of the young people in that specific area.”
UK Youth is a Guardian and Observer 2020 appeal charity. “We reach 4.1 million young people and, once they’re involved in their local project, we gradually encourage them to take on increased responsibilities,” Wainwright added. “The aim is that they develop the confidence and experience to change the world around them, to make things better for themselves and for others younger or less fortunate than themselves.”
There are more than 11 million young people in the UK: more than a fifth of the population. They are the next generation of workers and leaders of society but for many, their youth worker is the only person they openly talk to – and their youth club is the only safe space they feel they have to be heard and to explore their character on their own terms.
“Young people with complex needs and those from less privileged backgrounds, are being hardest hit by rising inequality and cuts to local services,” said Wainwright. “Young people are more likely to be a victim of violent crime, twice as likely to have lost employment as a result of coronavirus, and one in eight people under 19 suffer from a mental health disorder.”
The success of UK Youth mission has been evident across the UK during the pandemic. In Blackburn, for example, a group of young women aged 11 to 14 decided to help older people in their community made newly vulnerable by the pandemic.
Thanks to the support from UK Youth via a local youth group, the EmpowHER programme at the United Communities Organisation, the young women had the confidence to start the initiative when the crisis struck their community, delivering care packages to elderly neighbours trapped in their home.
“We really wanted to pull this project together as we felt so sorry for some of the older people who live around here and cannot get to the shops, and when they do the shelves are empty,” said 18-year-old Iqra Khan. “I went and did an elderly neighbour’s shopping and then spoke about it with the other girls from my EmpowHER group. Before the programme, there’s no way I would have thought that I could or should help others. I would never have thought that I had anything to offer,” she said.
“But being given kindness and support from EmpowHER helped me develop confidence in my own abilities, and to be able to feel empathy for others.”
In Birkenhead, one of the most deprived areas of Merseyside, a group of 40 young people from the Multiple project volunteered every day for six weeks at a community farm, which usually relied entirely on a retiree, volunteer workforce – most of whom had to shield during the summer. In Ellesmere Port, a group of young people volunteered day in, day out throughout the summer heatwave at a farm which provides vegetables and produce for a local food bank.
In Slough, members of the Aik Saath support group decided to cook and bake for NHS frontline staff, even taking a qualification in food safety to make sure their produce was Covid-secure. It was such a success that some young people went on to produce and distribute welfare bags together for the homeless.
Brian Williamson, aged 73, was one of the older people who received fortnightly food parcel from young women in the EmpowHER group over the summer. “The best part was that they would stand on my doorstep and chat with me,” he said. “The things we discussed bought home to me that life is really hard for young people at the moment.
“Now when we see each other in the streets, we say hello to each other. It’s really helped create a sense of community and belonging,” he added.
“They helped us all realise that we’re not completely different: that we all share the same world.”
