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Communities Minister announces £250,000 to give more young people from diverse backgrounds across the country the opportunity to join national youth groups.

Communities Minister Lord Bourne has announced £250,000 to give more young people from diverse backgrounds across the country the opportunity to join national youth groups like the Scouts, Police Cadets and Guiding.

This will give more youngsters the confidence, skills and experience they need to realise their potential. Youth United Foundation, a charity established to support a coalition of 11 uniformed youth volunteering organisations has already offered over 1.5 million young people the opportunity to develop teamwork, leadership, self-confidence and communication skills through a series of activities.

Government funding to date has helped train thousands of new volunteers with their member organisations including the Scout Association, Girlguiding, and St John’s Ambulance.

The new funding will be used to promote integration through building a national network of youth integration champions and rolling out long-term approaches to developing lasting relationships between young people from different backgrounds.

This complements the government’s ongoing work to improve integration including the recent launch of the Integrated Communities Innovation Fund, announced by Communities Secretary the Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP. Working in partnership with Sport England, the Innovation Fund will support projects that encourage integration including sport.

Communities Minister Lord Bourne said:

This government is determined to ensure young people from all backgrounds have the opportunity to go as far as their talents take them.

Organisations such as the Scouts Cadets and Girls Brigade give young people unique and challenging experiences that help them unlock their full potential.

With this funding, Youth United Foundation will be able to ensure that more young people have the opportunity to gain the skills and confidence to become great citizens of the future.

Youth United Foundation Chief Executive, Samantha Hyde said:

The Youth United Foundation are delighted that funding of £250,000 has been awarded to support the work of the Integrated Communities Strategy in targeted areas of England.

It will allow us to continue our work setting up new units and groups to which will contribute to the achievement of the government’s vision for building strong, integrated communities.

We look forward to working closely with our Network and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to build on this success.

Further information

Youth United Foundation is a charity established to support the Youth United Network, founded by HRH The Prince of Wales. The Network is a coalition of 11 uniformed youth volunteering organisations, including Girlguiding, the Scout Association, the Volunteer Police Cadets, and St John’s Ambulance.

This announcement comes in the same week as the launch of new research from Youth United, “Social Integration: the role of uniformed youth groups”, which provides powerful evidence of that participation in uniformed youth groups increases integration.

Funding for Youth United Foundation will support the objectives identified in the government’s Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper, which closed on 5 June 2018. This includes encouraging social mixing amongst different groups and increasing opportunities for all young people to boost their talents.

MHCLG provided £10 million for the Youth United Foundation’s Supporting Inclusion Programme which ran from April 2012 to September 2014 to increase the number of places in youth organisations in deprived areas, and £400,000 to the Youth United Foundation in 2017 to 2018 to support the Foundation’s core costs and test approaches to social mixing for young people.

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