Introduction
Frontier Youth Trust (FYT) and Worth Unlimited are two organisations that work with and for young people on the margins of society. We have joined forces to create a trust fund that will be controlled by young people – for young people and which will enable them to act on their own concerns. We are tired of the negative stereotypes of young people and want to enable them to demonstrate that they are a positive force for change in society.
Creating the Trust
In order to create the Young People in Action Trust fund we are giving away £1000 in £10 notes! We are offering £10 to any of the youth projects or groups that we link with and are asking them to take three months to turn this into as much as they can.
As Christian organisations we see this as related to the parable of the talents (see Matthew 25:14). However, we are quite happy about the double meaning in that we believe in young people and want to give them an opportunity to demonstrate their talent.
We want to end the three months of talent multiplication by December 2006 as a symbolic gesture to celebrate Christmas. Just imagine if each group raises £100 with their £10 – this would launch our youth-led Trust at the start of 2007 with £10,000! We also intend to continue fund-raising to enable the Trust to grow.
The Launch
To launch the initiative the two Directors of FYT and Worth Unlimited, myself and Tim Evans respectively, were given £10 to go on the road for a week in order to collect stories of hope about young people as a sponsored activity. During this time we travelled between Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham and Liverpool in four days with no resources or arrangements other than contact with several local youth work projects, radio stations and their £10!
We saw this as an alternative model for Christian leaders to promote their ideas – a substitute for large scale Christian conferences! Our book, which describes the whole journey will be on sale during November 06 and can be ordered from Frontier Youth Trust, Unit 208b, The Big Peg, 120 Vyse Street, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, B18 6NF, Tel: 0121 687 3505
E: [email protected]
Next month – and for the next few months – we shall be carrying extracts from the book.