Youth Leadership

Sutton Coldfield YMCA recognises and promotes the skills, experience and confidence which can be gained through volunteering. The youth leadership project is funded by the Big Lottery and aims to provide young people 13-25 with inclusive volunteer opportunities within their local area. Our goal is to provide 2000 volunteer episodes by the end of the third year, we have come to the end of our third year and have provided 3187 opportunities for young people. The project has developed strong links within the community to offer a wide range of opportunities for young people to try.

Key aims of the project aims are:

Increased engagement of hard to reach groups of young people.
Improved services for the whole community.
Increase levels of skills, confidence and self esteem in young people.

Highlights over the past year include:

Delivering 2 babysitting courses to 25 young people in the Stockland Green area.
Providing youth leadership courses to the falcon lodge area.
15 young people with disabilities have been volunteering in the local community.
Providing 3 Play day events in Sutton Coldfield & Erdington celebrating children's rights to play, we had over 2000 people attend the events.
45 business placements have occurred in the last year with young people being placed in businesses including Marks & Spencer's, St Giles Hospice and Birmingham City Council.
10 young people have supported the K Kats Show helping young people getting into costumes, hair, makeup and keeping them calm and focused before performing on stage.

Operation Christmas Child:

For 3 years now the young people that live at the YMCA have been involved with a worthwhile project call Operation Christmas Child. This project sends shoe boxes full of Christmas presents to the poorest children around the world. The young people gave up their free time to collect and check shoe boxes that were donated by the local community. They sent 14000 boxes this year!!

Case Study:

First attending as a young person at youth club, with low school attendance and behavioural issues, John has been part of the YMCA for over 6 years. On a ski trip with young people with disabilities he showed a natural talent and confidence in working with young people with disabilities, a year later he started to volunteer with K Kats twice a week on a weekly basis. He went on to act as mentor during the Royal Ballet performance of Cinderella. John is now 18 years old and employed as a valued member of the YMCA team.

Are you aware of Disability Campaign?:

Over the past year Ian Martin, who himself is Autistic, has began the Are you Aware of Disability national campaign which is about making other YMCA’s aware of what they can do for people with disabilities. He is now working with a national steering group to drive this agenda forward He has been invited to speak at a number of YMCA events including the Equality and diversity conference, National assembly and produced a national survey that was sent out via YMCA’s ENews. We have had overwhelming success with the number of replies from the survey and YMCA’s pledging their support.


Contact: Danielle Godwin - Project Manager, Tel: 0121 354 5614

Enquiries: [ HERE ]

Sutton Coldfield YMCA
George Williams House, Watson Close, St Bernard's Road, Sutton Coldfield,
West Midlands   B72 1LE, England
  0044 (0)121 354 5614 - or -   0044 (0)121 321 1582
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Updated January 6th, 2012 Published by: Lichfield Web Design