A youth room has been launched at John Willie Sams Centre in Dudley, thanks to a capital grant from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF).
One of the groups based there is the Inspire project for girls aged 11-19 who live in Weetslade, Camperdown or Longbenton wards. With their newly-refurbished room they have a safe space to chill out, access to free wifi, refreshments, and a choice of activities every Tuesday evening.
The girls take the lead on the activities they want, get life skills workshops and employment support. This includes access to fully-funded certified courses on food hygiene, safeguarding, workplace first aid, and mental health awareness.
The project is run by Quadrant Leisure CIC which has had other grants from the UKSPF scheme to allow it to run community day trips, a family Christmas disco, a weekly café club and Pretendy Chef cookery classes for adults and children, all based at John Willie Sams.
North Tyneside Council is partnering with North Tyneside VODA to deliver the UKSPF programme, which is funded by the UK Government with the North East Combined Authority as the lead authority. Through UKSPF, North Tyneside Council has invested over £1.2 million through a range of grants in the North West of the Borough.
UKSPF was made available to any voluntary and community sector organisations that provide services in Camperdown, Weetslade and Longbenton, with five different types of grants: capital, large, medium, small and youth.
It is part of North Tyneside Council’s Ambition for the North West of the Borough, creating attractive places to live, new opportunities for work and business, and inspiring spaces to play and visit.
Quadrant Leisure business director Dave Lattimer said: “The capital grant has allowed us to fit the room out, to create a fantastic space for our young people. There has been a gap in youth provision here for some time and having this room will make a huge difference.
“The young people have chosen the equipment they wanted and have helped design and kit the room out. That includes two TVs with X Box and Playstation, chill out space, hot cold drinks including a coffee pod machine, phone charging facilities, couch seating for 10 people and the use of five laptops, three of them with wireless headsets.
“This has been such an underused building by young people but that is now changing for the better. By bringing them into the youth room, they can see the facilities that are already here, like our Qfit gym, boxercise classes and activities in the hall.
“We have been able to use UKSPF funding to teach the young people some cookery skills, they choose what they want to cook. It teaches them a life skill, encourages teamwork, gives them confidence and they really enjoy it.
“We’ve done graffiti art classes with the girls and they created some incredible sign boards with help from Chris Clark from Heart Rewind CIC. Some of the girls are getting food hygiene qualifications which allows them to do work experience in our café.
“None of this would have happened without the UKSPF funding.
“Our other grants have paid for four community day trips in 2024 to York Christmas Market, Harrogate, Alnwick Garden and Seahouses, with a total of 195 coach seats occupied by people from the local area.
“Our weekly café club on a Tuesday from 9am till 2pm offers homely, subsidised food in relaxed setting and we serve an average of 34 covers at each session which is a great turnout People pop in to socialise, keep warm, get out of the house and feel part of the community, and they can have tea and coffee all day for £1.”
Inspire member Rosie, age 12, said: “It’s great to have somewhere to go other than our houses to meet your friends that you know is safe. I really like using the coffee machine and the X Box.”
Fellow Inspire member Cassidy age 13 said: “We can hang out with our friends here and do fun things. I live in the next village but I go to Rosie’s house first and we walk along together. I love coming here and the coffee machine is brilliant.”
With a focus on creating a sense of renewed pride, identity and connectivity in local communities, UKSPF aims to increase life chances across the UK investing in communities and place, supporting local business, and people and skills.
The capital, large, medium and youth funds are now closed, and all money has been allocated, but funding is still available through the small grants scheme via North Tyneside VODA until 31 December 2024.