Each month we highlight a charity that is working to make our communities better. This month we talked to the Hebe Foundation, a youth organisation that helps teens discover and use their talents. We asked them about their work with London’s young people.
Tell us about the Hebe Foundation.
The Hebe Foundation is a youth charity working across London that seeks to help young people realise and use their gifts and talents, whilst creating the character to sustain their gifts. We are passionate about giving young people a safe environment for their discovery, development and growth. We work with all young people aged 13 to 21 years regardless of their ethnicity, faith, abilities or economic placement.
In what areas of London do you work?
We work across London in various areas depending on the partners we are working with at the time. At present we are working in Clapham, West Norwood, Peckham, Wood Green and Hillingdon.
What obstacles are faced by the youth you work with?
Although we work with all young people, the majority are from disadvantaged backgrounds. Most are from single-parent families and low-income households. Many of our young people have to deal with learning disabilities or mental-health issues ranging from low self-esteem to mental breakdowns. Many issues around interaction across social media have come up gradually. A big obstacle they all face is challenged employment prospects: the lack of knowledge and skills to enter a working environment, and to know how to operate effectively within that environment; big university debts and no guarantee of jobs; lack of understanding of the opportunities available to them.
Tell us about some of your projects.
All our projects are bespoke and are created in response to the needs and issues the young people have. Our flagship project is The Junior Apprentice—a business and leadership challenge, where young people battle it out over various business tasks to become the London-wide Junior Apprentice. This project involves working closely with top businesses whilst learning valuable, transferable business skills.
Another project is Urban Debaters, where young people work to develop key skills in how to debate, communicate and argue their opinions confidently, constructively and comprehensively. Top lawyers share all their techniques; the young people research and debate current issues, play fun debating games, and learn how to speak confidently in any situation. It ends with a ‘Big Debate Off’ and prize-giving ceremony.
London’s Next Top Role Model provides a platform for young people to explore the concepts of role models, image and self-awareness. They seek to find how society views people and its idea of what a role model is. They then create and document through a photographic exhibition what they think the characteristics of a role model are, and identify the qualities they need to succeed and give back to their community and beyond.
Finally, in our project Books 4 Schools we are working with a children’s writer to distribute his fantastic books, The Adventures of Nanny and Grandad. These books are free to all schools. We are passionate about children reading.
What obstacles does your organisation face?
Our main obstacle is lack of funding. The demand for our work is increasing daily; our young people are turning to us to help them in so many areas of their lives—from finding work-experience placements and assistance in choosing colleges to help with conflict management. We can only do so much with very limited resources. As it stands the only paid staff is our part-time administrator.
At present the majority of our projects take place during school holidays due to lack of funding for year-round quality youth provision. Government and local council funding has habitually been cut yearly, so we are having to fight against other brilliant organisations to gain small pots of funding and spend time on making ends meet, instead of spending time on the young people themselves.
Other obstacles are not having the support from some parents when it comes to the young people’s development to enable a full 360 support network for them. So the work we do gets undone whilst the young person is in the home environment.
As we are a growing charity, we don’t have a full complement of office staff to handle the workload; although it is heavy, we never see it as a burden—it’s all about the young people and that makes us persevere no matter how hard the task.
What are your funding sources?
Our main funding sources are charitable funders and trusts such as Children in Need or Big Lottery. Our corporate partnerships sometimes lead to funding, and we have a small number of individual donors.
How can people get involved?
We cannot exist without our volunteers, and we always are in need of more. Volunteers who have the enthusiasm and energy to support our young people or have skills in administration to help in the office are always welcome. Having people to help us fundraise is such a blessing; we are always looking for Hebe Champions to help us raise awareness and campaign financially for sustainable growth.
For more information, visit the Hebe Foundation’s website.
