Last August, we launched the ESDF Save London Lives fund which aims to build a better and more robust community response to youth violence in London through a Grants Plus approach - providing grant funding alongside a programme of capacity building support to local community organisations. This initiative intends to build the resilience and capacity of organisations working with young people, to deliver important services to tackle violence.
Almost one year on from our publication of The Violence Virus, we are pleased to announce that we have now awarded a total of 41 grants to organisations across London through two rounds of the Save London Lives initiative.
The first round of grants was awarded in November 2018 and focused on supporting 20 charities that provide trauma support for young people and families affected by serious youth violence as well as those providing additional school support and family support.
We have now awarded the second round of grants, supporting a further 21 organisations who are helping young people by providing meaningful work placements, training and work skills.
Through this second round, 21 charities will receive grants of up to £20k over two years, amounting to more than £400,000 in total thanks to a donation from The Citi Foundation.
The two-year funding will support the core and activity costs of successful organisations and final decisions on awards were made by a multi-disciplinary panel of Evening Standard representatives and young people.
All organisations funded through rounds one and two will also receive an additional £500 each to support them with attending the training and skills sessions. They will also benefit from links in to pro bono support through our partners Citi as well as access to a range of networking and capacity building events.
One of the organisations who received funding was Regenerate, who received £20,000 over two years to deliver employment opportunities and wraparound support for 24 young people in Wandsworth.
Andy Smith, Co-Founder of Regenerate said: "This two year funding will enable us to continue our work with young offenders and those at risk of offending in London. As a result of the funding each young person will be provided with a mentor and a personal development programme to uncover their talents and passions and provide them with the tools to pursue them into the future. With London's crime rate on the rise it is really important that projects like ours can continue to grow and we are very grateful to everyone at The Evening Standard and The London Community Foundation for their support."
Another organisation, Vi-Ability, received £19,250 over two years to deliver their eight-week Business of Sport programme to 30 young people involved in the criminal justice system in Lewisham.
Vi-Ability's Chief Operating Officer, Shelley Meyern said: "Vi-Ability are a social enterprise which has been using sports business to attract, inspire and educate disadvantaged people since 2010. We use our award-winning education programmes to teach business and employability skills and then provide the opportunities for participants to gain valuable experience by helping to transform local community sports offerings. This project will inspire and educate individuals who are on the Divert programme in Lewisham and also on the Release On Temporary Licence (ROTL) programme at Feltham Youth Offending Institute (YOI). The primary problem we wish to address is to increase our impact in working to reduce youth violence and crime in London through our proactive intervention at certain stages of an individual's engagement with the criminal justice system."